
Class "fiN/4 9 3 2. 

Book , 

Copighl N? 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The 

Life Ecstatic 



by 
The 'ReO. James Madge, 2). 2). 

Author of " The Life of Love," " The Land of Faith," 

"The Saintly Calling," " Honey from Many Hives," 

Etc., Etc. 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 Nassau Street 
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



V 






\ 



sr 



/S¥-7/f 



Copyright, ipo6, by 
American Tract Society 



4 

9 



jForetoorU 

TS it not a shame, and a thousand pities, that 
■*• so few of God's children are habitually jubi- 
lant? Not many have the " solar light " on their 
faces. Not many seem to understand that ample 
provision has been made whereby they may con- 
tinually rejoice. Hence this book ; to assert the 
fact, and explain the method. He who reads it 
carefully, and steadily practises what it contains, 
will possess the life ecstatic. 

JAMES MUDGE. 

Jamaica Plain, Mass. 



CONTENTS 

ALL FOR THE BEST BA „ W 

FAGS 

1 . . THE LIFE ECSTATIC . . 7 

A LIFE HEROIC 

2 . . THE RADIANT LIFE . . 21 

SECRET OF A HAPPY DAY 

3 • THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING . 35 

THE ELIXIR 

4 . EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE . 55 

SOME TIME 

5 . . EVERYTHING A GODSEND . . 73 

A LITTLE BIRD I AM 

6 . . SHOUTINGS IN VERSE . . 97 

RABIA 

7 . .A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES . . 115 

TRUST AND REST 

8 . . A PRINCE WITH GOD . . 135 

WAITING 

9 . . SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS . . 155 

A PERFECT TRUST 

10 . . SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY . . 175 

WHAT MATTER? 

11 - . THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM . . 187 

OUR HOME ABOVE 

12 . SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 203 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 



ALL FOR THE BEST. 



O Lord, how happy should we be 
If we could cast our care on Thee; 

If we from self could rest, 
And feel at heart that One above 
In perfect wisdom, perfect love, 

Is working for the best. 

Could we but kneel and cast our load 
E'en while we pray, upon our God 

Then rise with lightened cheer ; 
Sure that the Father, who is nigh 
To still the famished raven's cry, 

Will hear in that we fear. 

Lord, make these faithless hearts of ours 
Such lessons learn from birds and flowers, 

Make them from self to cease; 
Leave all things to a Father's will 
And find, before Him, lying still, 

E'en in affliction peace. 

Sir John Bouring. 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC. 



We mean by this phrase to indicate the con- 
dition of the man who has given himself abso- 
lutely into God's keeping, and has received in re- 
turn all that God stands ever ready to bestow 
upon his best beloved children. Is ecstasy a term 
too strong to describe it? It will not be so ad- 
judged, we believe, by those who have experi- 
enced the emotion and known the state. The 
word has not yet been honored by a place in the 
vocabulary of our English Bible; neither has 
enthusiasm, rapture, ardor, and many another 
burning bush through which God flames. But 
now that "radiant" and "exult" have been 
brought in by the Old Testament Revisers, out 
of the Hebrew, we may hope that "ecstasy" will 
some day get admission from the Greek; for 
there are words in the New Testament that 
might well be so rendered without at all over- 
stepping the bounds of the intense fulness of 
delight with which they are surcharged. When 
we are told to be "exceeding glad," and to "leap 
for joy," and to be "glad with exceeding joy," 



10 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

it is evident that something very like ecstasy is 
meant. It points to an overpowering emotion, 
the being carried quite out of one's normal self 
in a really rapturous, passionate way, to a trans- 
portation and exaltation that is entirely up to 
the measure of ecstatic. 

It will have to be admitted, of course, that the 
ordinary Christian life does not call for any such 
adjective to describe it. That life, alas, is a very 
tame, cool, humdrum affair, scarcely to be dis- 
tinguished from that which has no Christian label 
whatever, and sometimes even inferior to that 
which is the fruit of the highest moral philos- 
ophy. We all know that the average Christian 
does not particularly honor his Lord, or exhibit 
with any sort of adequacy the glory of the great 
salvation; and that the Church will never con- 
quer the world or impress itself as it should upon 
society until a very different state of things pre- 
vails. We all know, also, or ought to know, 
that abundant provision has been made for an- 
other order of affairs altogether, for continuous 
triumph instead of frequent defeat, strength in- 
stead of weakness, success instead of failure, hap- 
piness instead of humiliation and sorrow, 

What does the Book say? "God is able to 
make all grace abound unto you, that ye having 
always all-sufficiency in everything, may abound 
unto every good work"; "able to guard you from 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 11 

stumbling, and to set you before the presence of 
His glory with exceeding joy." "Jesus is able to 
save to the uttermost them that draw near unto 
God through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make 
intercession for them/ 5 "If we walk in the light, 
as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with 
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth 
us from all sin." "Sin shall not have dominion 
over you." "Reckon ye yourselves to be dead 
indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ 
Jesus." "Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord." "Count 
it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." 
"I can do all things in Him that strengthened 
me." "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him." "I will bless the Lord at all times. His 
praise shall continually be in my mouth." "I will 
rejoice in the Lord ; I will joy m the God of my 
salvation." "The peace of God, which passeth 
all understanding, shall guard your hearts and 
your thoughts in Christ Jesus." "The truth 
shall make you free." "Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, be- 
cause he trusteth in thee." "My God shall sup- 
ply every need of yours, according to His riches 
in glory, by Christ Jesus." "My grace is suffi- 
cient for thee." "All things are possible to him 
that believeth." "The path of the just is as a 
shining light, that shineth more and more unto 



12 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the perfect day." "This is the victory that over- 
cometh the world, even our faith." "Your joy 
no man taketh from you." And many more such 
words there are, describing the privileges of the 
believer. These are but a very small part, the 
merest handful, of what might easily be cited 
from holy writ. They come to us in promise and 
precept and prayer, in the declaration of purpose, 
the statement of experience, and the command- 
ment of authority. They are a constant rebuke 
to our listlessness and lukewarmness, a perpetual 
incentive to the attainment of far better things. 
That such attainment is feasible and every way 
desirable, a multitude of witnesses testify. It is 
not to be believed that God would command it 
were it out of our reach. The reason why so few 
comparatively have mounted to these heights 
must be looked for in lack of appreciation and 
lack of resolution. Nothing great is gained with- 
out effort. The prize of wealth is not for him 
who is unwilling to bend his energies tirelessly 
to the task. Deep learning and the mastery of 
noble truth will not come to the scholar who is 
easily turned aside by difficulties. The star of 
fame rarely, if ever, rests upon the brow of him 
who refuses to toil. The laws of human prog- 
ress and achievement are the same in spiritual as 
in temporal things. We do not get something for 
nothing in one more than in the other. Although 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 13 

grace is free, it is wrong to infer that we need, 
therefore, pay nothing to maintain the institu- 
tions of the gospel; and equally w r rong to con- 
clude that the lazy man will rise as high in holi- 
ness as the energetic. God's bounty is without 
money, but every promise has its condition, and 
only they who heartily co-operate w r ith God can 
receive His blessing. He will do all He can 
for every one, but He can do little or nothing for 
the indolent, the negligent, the unresponsive. 
We have the matter, therefore, in our own 
hands. An intelligent application of means to 
end is as much called for in religion as in busi- 
ness. And it is because such application is so 
seldom seen that the Lord uttered that biting 
rebuke to His disciples, 'The sons of this world 
are in their generation wiser than the sons of 
light." The same shrewd planning and vigorous 
executing which mammon worshipers rely upon 
for success has legitimate place in the case of 
Christ worshipers, and the fact that it is rarely 
found sufficiently accounts for the poor results 
that are so common. 

What are the paths to the life ecstatic, what 
are its conditions ? It cannot be said that, strict- 
ly speaking, there is any secret about it, although 
that word is frequently used in such connections. 
They have been often set forth. They may be 
phrased in many ways. They are not mysteries, 



14 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

or things hidden from the gaze of any who will 
take proper pains to make their acquaintance. 
That they appear to be known only to a few is in- 
ferred, not unnaturally, from the fact that so 
few act as if they knew them. When an immense 
treasure is at the disposal of those who have the 
password which admits to the chamber where it 
is stored, and only a dozen go in, it is fair to sup- 
pose that the rest are without the password. 
Such reasoning would certainly seem sound to 
one accustomed to dealing with men who are mad 
after money, and who are unable to see any cause 
why the particular pile of money in the secret 
chamber is not as desirable as any other. Are 
the cases parallel? The spiritual treasure is not 
only as real as the temporal, but far more im- 
portant, more permanent, more deeply satisfying. 
The conditions of access to it, we may confess, 
are not altogether easy — how could they be with- 
out contradicting all analogy, and depreciating 
its proper worth? But we are unwilling to admit 
that they are wholly beyond the reach of any. 
The password is available for all such as really 
want it. That almost all choose to go without 
the treasure must be set down as one of the inex- 
plicable puzzles which pertain to the whole proc- 
ess and prevalence of sin, that sin which blinds 
the eyes and stops the ears and hardens the 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 15 

heart against all the divine calls so that they are 
not apprehended or understood. 

Who, then, can be saved in this large, full, 
glorious sense of which we speak? All who set 
themselves about it in downright dead earnest, 
with the motto, "This one thing I do." All who 
are willing to make other matters secondary, 
putting this first. All who by much meditation 
and careful investigation reach the deliberate 
conclusion that this is worth while no matter 
what the cost. All who, after studying the sub- 
ject in the light of every available means of in- 
formation, and studying also their own particular 
position formulate a plan of campaign adapted to 
produce the desired result, and then systemati- 
cally, indefatigably put it into execution. 

Does this statement seem to limit the number 
to those very exceptionally constituted ? If it does, 
this may also be said : each human being, how- 
ever low in mentality or spirituality, can become 
better than he is, and that first step upward will 
open the way to another step so that if he presses 
on the most marvelous things can eventually be 
grasped. And if we are far below the top and 
must move slower than some more favorably cir- 
cumstanced, that is no excuse for our not moving 
at all. Our progress will surely be expedited the 
further on we go. It is the nature of things : 
that is, it is the wisdom and power and love of 



16 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

God, that makes these differences in human qual- 
ity and capacity. To lodge complaints against 
the arrangement will do us no good. The bet- 
ter way is to determine that we will evolve to the 
utmost whatever capacities are in us, patient 
with ourselves and with the Almighty, not envy- 
ing those that may be ahead of us, nor despising 
those behind, but doing our best, with the means 
at our disposal, to fulfill the special will divine 
that touches us. 

The ecstatic life is, like all other things below 
the level of the infinite or the absolutely perfect, 
a matter of degrees. The very name, of course, 
implies a high degree of joy, but it may be more 
or less high. So far as it is a joy of the feelings 
it must be susceptible of considerable changes 
from time to time as circumstances alter. But 
the joy of the will need not thus be subject to 
fluctuation. This is the deeper joy, that which 
abides as well as abounds. This joy is inde- 
pendent of conditions, and is based on God alone, 
with whom there is no change. It will be high, 
unalterably so, in proportion as faith with unfal- 
tering firmness takes hold on God, and the chan- 
nels of the whole being are freely open to the un- 
obstructed incoming of the heavenly influences. 
Where no doubt whatever, not the slightest in- 
cipient shadow of question, as to the Father's 
goodness and power is admitted, even into the 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 17 

outskirts of the mind, there can be no gloom or 
fear or care. And if the will has set itself, once 
for all, like a rock, against such admission, and 
by constant watchfulness maintains this attitude, 
in vain will the tides of human circumstance and 
appearance dash themselves upon the barrier thus 
reared. A prompt and sufficient reply to every 
such suggestion will be ready, temptation will 
have no ground in which it can root itself, a 
perfect antidote to sorrow stands prepared when- 
ever that poison threatens to gain a lodgment. 
As faith increases, then, in the processes of per- 
petual Christian growth, this joy which is linked 
with it must also increase. The degree of one 
will determine the degree of the other. The faith 
of the neophyte is feeble, vacillating, spasmodic ; 
it slips when much pressure is applied ; hence his 
joy is a very variable quantity. The faith of 
the saint, thoroughly instructed, long habituated, 
grounded in reason, reflection, revelation, and ex- 
perience, is so strong that nothing can relax its 
hold; hence his joy takes on a tone to which the 
words exultation and jubilation are fully applica- 
ble. There is an effervescence and exuberance 
about it that brings forth hosannas and hallelu- 
jahs. The doxology rises continually to the 
lips; songs of praise come gushing up; shouts 
cannot be altogether repressed ; the cup of bless- 



18 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

ing runs over, and all that are around share in its 
benediction. 

The life ecstatic can be but faintly described. 
Its charming hilarity and winsome buoyancy, its 
gaiety and glee, cannot be put into words. It 
must be experienced to be fully known. It is 
a blessed reality to some. Why should not more 
have it? Its consistent exhibition will do more 
than anything else to commend religion to the 
world. For it is a very sad and heavily burdened 
world, seeking painfully to be merry in ways 
that miscarry. "Be not drunken with wine, 
wherein is riot," says the apostle, "but be filled 
with the Spirit." The collocation is exceedingly 
suggestive. That elation and exhilaration which 
the wine-bibber seeks through the channel of his 
stomach, and whose reaction plunges him deeper 
into dolefulness, may be truly and healthfully se- 
cured by the fulness of the Spirit of God, which 
supplies an enlivenment that does not disap- 
point. And the apostle goes on in the same con- 
nection (Eph. V. 18-20) to note, as the result of 
this infilling, that "psalms and hymns and spir- 
itual songs" will be melodiously sung with both 
heart and voice, while the recipients are "giving 
thanks always for all things." Such thankful- 
ness, which excepts nothing, small or great, hard 
or easy, painful or pleasant, from the bright, 
broad scope of its inclusion, and which St. Paul 



THE LIFE ECSTATIC 19 

clearly holds before us as our privilege and duty, 
is an essential part of the life ecstatic, and when 
completely compassed carries with it the posses- 
sion of that life. In the pages that follow we 
hope to make plain many other points concerning 
it, and to help our readers to its acquirement. 



THE RADIANT LIFE 



A LIFE HEROIC. 



I like the man who faces what he must \ 

With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; 
Who fights the daily battle without fear; 

Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust 
That God is God; that somehow, true and just 

His plans work out for mortals; not a tear 
Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, 

Falls from his grasp; better, with love, a crust 
Than living in dishonor ; envies not, 

Nor loses faith in man ; but does his best, 
Nor ever murmurs at his humbler lot, 

But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest 
To every toiler : he alone is great, 

Who by a life heroic conquers fate. 

Sarah Knowles Bolton. 



THE RADIANT LIFE. 

We are indebted to the American company of 
revisers for the introduction of this beautiful and 
suggestive word, "radiant," into our Bibles. It 
does not find place either in the Authorized ver- 
sion or the English revision, but in the American 
revision it appears in two verses : in Psalm 
xxxiv. 5, "They looked unto him and were radi- 
ant," instead of "were lightened" ; and in Isaiah 
lx. 5, "They shall see and be radiant, and their 
heart shall thrill and be enlarged," instead of 
"They shall see and flow together and their heart 
shall fear and be enlarged." Delitzsch renders the 
first passage, "They look unto him and brighten 
up." What a vast number of timid, trembling, 
care-ridden, disturbed and fretful Christian souls 
there are to whom one longs to address the ex- 
hortation, "Brighten up," "Look pleasant." It 
surely can be done, and will easily follow when 
the heart is right. 

The story is told of a widow, who, with a for- 
bidding look, was seated in a chair having her 
picture taken, when the photographer, thrusting 



24 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

his head out of the black cloth, said: "Just 
brighten up the eyes a little." Though she tried, 
the dull, heavy look still lingered. "See here." 
the woman retorted sharply, "if you think that an 
old woman that is dull can look bright every time 
she is told to, you don't know anything about 
human nature. It takes something from the out- 
side to brighten the eye and illuminate the face." 
"Oh, no, it doesn't. It is something to be worked 
from the inside. Try it again," said the photog- 
rapher. Something in his manner inspired faith, 
and she tried again, when he exclaimed, "That's 
good. That's fine. You look twenty years 
younger.*' Going home she thought there might 
be something in it, but resolved to wait and see 
the picture. When the picture came it was like a 
resurrection. The face seemed alive with the 
fires of youth. Thinking and gazing earnestly 
she said, "If I could do it once I can do it again." 
Time after time she would go to the mirror and 
say to herself, "Brighten up. Look a little pleas- 
anter," until a change became noticeable, and 
the neighbors said, "Why. you are getting young. 
How do you manage it?" To which she always 
replied, "It's almost all done from the inside. 
You just brighten up inside and feel pleasant." 
It is very true that happiness and contentment 
are from the inside, and if the heart is not right 
a whole world cannot give us true joy. 



THE RADIANT LIFE 25 

Mere effort of the will, however, — this anec- 
dote, perhaps, makes it important to say — is not 
very likely to accomplish much in the way of 
brightening up the face. But if the mind has a 
good firm grip on God, if faith claims His prom- 
ises unswervingly, if love divine has taken com- 
plete possession of the soul, then the effect will 
be speedily visible in the countenance. It is very 
noticeable that in both the quotations given, the 
one in Psalms and the other in Isaiah, there is 
a close connection marked between receiving 
radiance and looking unto Him. In other words, 
the source of the light is, in a very important 
sense, outside ourselves, rather than inside, and 
only as we secure unbroken connection with that 
source, only as we see that glorious sun, keeping 
the clouds away from our spiritual sky and bask- 
ing in His beams, can we radiate much light. 

This thought is well expressed by St. Paul in 
II. Cor. III. 18, "We all with open (or unveiled) 
face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the 
Lord, are changed (transformed) into the same 
image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the 
Lord." Yes, yes, if we behold God's glory long 
enough we come to share it. The light of His 
countenance lifted upon us for a good while is 
communicated to us, so that there is a transfer- 
ence of it to us, and a transformation. The be- 
holding mentioned most certainly means a steady 



26 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

gaze, implying a well-formed habit. It has been 
fitly said that a glance at Christ will save us — it 
is but look and live — but only a gaze at Christ 
will sanctify us fully. And we are entirely per- 
suaded that it is the sad lack of sufficient gazing 
and beholding and waiting upon God, so preva- 
lent at the present time, that is at the bottom of 
the superficiality and shallowness, the unsatis- 
factoriness and inconsistency of the prevailing 
type of piety. The tendency of the times is to put 
stress upon the outward rather than the inward, 
to honor service more than character, to exalt 
work instead of experience, philanthropy and 
morality instead of personal religion. A mere en- 
thusiasm for humanity must not be allowed to 
take the place of devotion to God. "Thou shalt 
love the Lord with all thine heart" is still the first 
commandment, and to put the second above it, 
which is so popular with the worldly or the un- 
reflecting to-day, can bring nothing but harm and 
weakness to the church. It is largely in this way 
we have lost our power. 

There must be more meditation and more 
prayer. It is on our knees that we see furthest 
into the heavens. This hustling, bustling age 
which cries, "Be up and doing, push, pull, get 
there/' which casts much scorn upon self-exam- 
ination and scouts the idea that the quiet hour is 
of any special importance — this age, so. far as its 



THE RADIANT LIFE 27 

ruling spirit is followed, makes no saints. Great 
souls are not built up by hurly-burly, in the rush 
and roar of an over-strenuous outward activity. 
If communion with God is given the go-by we 
shall suffer exceedingly. The perfection of holi- 
ness takes much time. How often this needs to 
be said. There is no quick and easy way to this 
or to anything else of the very highest impor- 
tance. Pay the price and take it. That is the 
only rule. Our salvation not only cost the Sa- 
viour a great deal, but it costs the saved a great 
deal. He who really wants to receive it in its 
fulness and richness, having got a glimpse of the 
exceeding great preciousness of it, will be more 
than willing to lay down the price. Many peo- 
ple deceive themselves in thinking that they have 
a genuine desire for eminent goodness. They 
have some faint idle wishes in that direction; 
but that they are only wishes, vague, unproduc- 
tive, ineffective, fluctuating, is seen from the fact 
that they are not stirred by them to put forth the 
requisite effort and use the appointed means. 
Only that is really desire which straightway 
frames itself into vigorous endeavor. And such 
desire will not come unless there be a good deal 
of thought. "While I was musing/' the Psalm- 
ist says, "the fire burned, then spake I." It is a 
process which leads also to deeds and attainments. 
Thought, feeling, action is the inevitable order. 



28 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

If thought is shallow, feeling is feeble, and action 
of no particular account. It is only when ideas 
get full possession of us that we carry them out 
effectively in deeds. And how can they get full 
possession unless we sit down beside them for a 
good while and let them sink into our souls, un- 
less we cultivate their company and know them 
through and through. 

The point is so plain that it seems almost su- 
perfluous to dwell upon it. Yet we are disposed 
to do it because of the great multitudes that ap- 
pear to have no adequate or intelligent concep- 
tion concerning it. They think, or at least say, 
that the closet is an outworn institution, that the 
prayer-meeting is antiquated and might as well 
be abandoned, that emotional religion is of an in- 
ferior sort, that the whole scheme of the Chris- 
tian life needs reconstruction. But the experi- 
ence of the ages is against them ; and their policy 
is as unsound philosophically as it is contrary to 
Scripture. If we are to escape self-deception, if 
we are to live from any special depth of being, if 
iwe are to reach any great height of abiding joy 
— and surely these things are of primary impor- 
tance — then stillness before God and the steady 
contemplation of the greatest truths which the 
human mind is capable of grasping, must on no 
account be slighted. "On thee do I wait all the 
day," says the Psalmist, "my soul waiteth upon 



THE RADIANT LIFE 29 

God," or, as the Hebrew has it literally, "my 
soul is silent unto God." Blessed silence ! "They 
that wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth"; 
they shall certainly get the good of it in a way 
that its titular possessors never can. "None that 
wait on Him shall be ashamed," shall have cause 
to blush, shall be confounded, or made afraid. 
"They that wait on the Lord shall renew their 
strength," for the Lord is the source of soul 
strength, and only by a faith which is nourished 
in solitude and silence can the power of God pass 
into men. "Wait on the Lord, be of good cour- 
age, and He shall strengthen thine heart." To 
get real strength and courage, and also highest 
ecstasy, there is no other way. 

David, and the other writers of the Hebrew 
hymns which we call psalms, are continually 
harping upon joy and praise, as well as upon 
that quiet contemplation of sacred things which 
they term "waiting upon God." And the connec- 
tion between them they make very plain, as in the 
first psalm, where we read, "His delight is in the 
law of the Lord, and on His law doth he medi- 
tate day and night." It is the meditation that 
brings the delight, as well as the delight that 
leads to the meditation. The radiant life, or the 
life ecstatic, has no better stronghold in the 
Bible than the Psalms, no better book of direc- 
tion and authorization. If we cite here a few of 



30 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the passages it is but as samples of the very 
great host which our readers will feel it a privi- 
lege to look up and draw out for themselves. 
"Let all those that take refuge in thee rejoice, let 
them ever shout for joy"(V. h), "I will go 
unto God, my exceeding joy" (XLIII. 4), "Thou 
makest me glad with joy in thy presence" (XXI. 
6), "In thy presence is fulness of joy" (XVI. 
11), "In His temple everything saith, Glory" 
(XXIX. 9), and this is true whether we take 
temple to mean a single building, or the whole 
earth, or the believing soul. "Thy God hath 
anointed thee with the oil of gladness" (XLV. 
7), "I will be glad and exult in Thee" (IX. 2), 
"God hath spoken in His holiness, I will exult" 
(LX. 6), "Let the righteous be glad, let them 
exult before God" (LXVIII. 3), "I delight to 
do thy will, O my God" (XL. 8), "I will delight 
myself in thy statutes," "Thy statutes have been 
my songs in the house of my pilgrimage," "Thy 
law is my delight" (CXIX.. 16, 54, 77). 

Is not the sort of character and conduct which 
these vivid expressions betoken fitly called the 
radiant life? It has close affinity with the sun 
shining in its strength and glowing with glad ef- 
fulgence. There is in it a suggestion of light and 
heat and power and preciousness. It seems to 
call up images of plenty and wideness, and bril- 
liancy and joy. God's great' out-of-doors looks 



THE RADIANT LIFE 31 

us in the face, a clear sky salutes us, bright 
breezes fan our cheeks, we leap and run, we 
beam with good cheer, we are more than con- 
querors, we taste the powers of the world to 
come, we antedate the resurrection day. Radiant, 
regnant, redolent, are terms which well befit the 
Christian who has entered on his grand inheri- 
tance in Jesus and taken possession of his privi- 
leges. His countenance may well beam, his eye 
sparkle, his cheeks glow, his whole being be buoy- 
ant, his whole frame emit effulgence. His glad- 
ness should stream from every pore, make itself 
felt in every pose of his body, movement of his 
limbs, sound of his voice, word of his lips. He is 
so full of happiness, has taken it in so completely, 
is so gloriously charged with it, that he has to 
pour it forth on every side and by every outlet. 
There is a contagion of cheerfulness about him. 
He has a smile that is not on the surface simply, 
to be rubbed off by adverse circumstances, but 
goes deep down like the tattooing which has 
reached the bone. A marvelous piece of good 
news is perpetually sounding in his ear. A won- 
derful fortune has come to him, a fortune com- 
pared with which all earthly wealth is the merest 
bubble and bauble. All things are his, all things 
that he can possibly need; a guarantee has been 
given him by infinite power that every want shall 
be met so long as he lives, that not a single good 



32 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

thing shall ever be lacking in his case. He is 
a multi-millionaire for riches, a king for power 
and position; a multi-millionaire, without the 
crushing cares and problems which embitter the 
mind and shorten the days; a king without the 
empty pomp which holds no panacea for grief, 
the pageantry which is only a prelude to panic 
fear. 

Most surely the thorough-going Christian who 
is out-and-out for Christ, who has put self fully 
away and lives for God alone, who implicitly be- 
lieves the word of truth and rests his soul un- 
waveringly on the promises is blessed beyond the 
power of words to express. He can do all things 
in Christ, he has all things that can possibly be 
of any use to him, his peace is perfect, his cup 
of joy overflows, he is magnificently independent 
of temporal conditions, he is master of every sit- 
uation in which he is placed, he is conqueror 
of circumstances. What more can be asked? 
Will not such an one be radiant? Will he not 
have a smiling face? He cannot help smiling; 
because nobody can take away Jesus from him, 
and, having Jesus, he needs nothing else to make 
him supremely happy. He can shout "All's 
Well/' above the storms, for the storms only 
help him on his way. He finds it fun to live in 
the Beulah Land to which he belongs. He gets 
every day the finest felicity,- the highest hilarity, 



THE RADIANT LIFE 33 

the j oiliest jocularity. Is it not a pity that a 
larger proportion of God's dear people do not get 
saved in this comprehensive and every way satis- 
factory manner, saved to the uttermost? He is 
well able to keep that which we commit unto 
Him, to keep us from falling, ever so little, to 
garrison with His peace our hearts and minds, 
to make us stand untouched by trouble, to free 
us from fear, anxiety and disappointment, to 
cause us to triumph over all our foes, and give 
us such a constant speedy victory in every con- 
flict with the adversary that we shall scarcely be 
conscious there has been any conflict. He can 
fill us with Himself, cause His Spirit to take 
such possession of us that without cessation we 
shall have communion with the Father and the 
Son and the Holy Ghost. Thus shall the Sun of 
righteousness rise upon us, nevermore to go 
down, with plentiful healing in His wings; 
and the life more abundant, the life of heavenly 
happiness and bliss supreme, the life of faith and 
hope and love, the life radiant and regnant, shall 
be ours in largest measure all the time. Hal- 
lelujah! What a Saviour! 



THE ART OF ALWAYS 
REJOICING. 



THE SECRET OF A HAPPY DAY. 



Just to let thy Father do 

What He will ; 
Just to know that He is true, 

And be still. 
Just to follow hour by hour 

As He leadeth; 
Just to draw the moment's power 

As it needeth. 
Just to trust Him, that is all ! 

Then the day will surely be 
Peaceful, whatsoe'er befall, 

Bright and blessed, calm and free. 

Just to leave in His dear hand 

Little things; 
All we cannot understand, 

All that stings, 
Just to let Him take the care, 

Sorely pressing, 
Finding all we let Him bear 

Changed to blessing. 
This is all ! and yet the way 

Marked by Him who loves thee best, 
Secret of a happy day. 

Secret of His promised rest. 

—Frances R. Havergal. 



THE ART OF ALWAYS 
REJOICING. 



I call the habit of always rejoicing, which is 
only another name for the life ecstatic, an art, 
because I wish to draw attention to the fact that 
the desired end can only be reached by the sys- 
tematic arrangement and adoption of the requisite 
means, that certain rules need to be formulated, 
and skill in observing them acquired by practice. 
There is a kind of science involved as well, if 
by science we mean "knowledge reduced to law 
and embodied to system." There is both some- 
thing to be known and something to be done, 
most emphatically, if we are to gain the heights 
of perpetual gladness. The phrase "mechanic 
arts" is commonly used to designate those which 
aim at utility, and "fine arts" those whose aim 
is beauty. This particular art will not come 
under either of these heads exclusively, for it 
combines both utility and beauty in a marvelous 
way. There is nothing mechanical about it, but 
what can be more useful, what has closer rela- 
tion to wholesome industry, than the power to see 



38 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the bright side of things and make the best of 
all matters. 

What, on the other hand, is more beautiful 
than the spirit of cheerfulness which scatters sun- 
shine and flowers along all paths and diffuses an 
atmosphere of good fellowship. It can hardly 
be out of order to term it the art of arts, contri- 
buting in the most direct way to the promotion 
of everything desirable and important, everything 
which the other arts, in a more roundabout 
manner, are designed in the end to secure, 
for they are all practised with a view to the 
happiness of the race. Poetry, music, painting, 
sculpture contribute very much to the' delight of 
those classes that are capable of appreciating 
them, but how far short they come of imparting 
to the multitude of humanity any abiding bliss. 
The ruder, humbler arts, mixed up with trade 
and manual labor, minister in a practical way to 
the welfare of mankind, but the bodies which 
they serve can get on with very poor supplies if 
the souls within are filled with joy. So the art 
of always rejoicing has a place of permanence 
which no other can claim. It deserves most care- 
ful study, most diligent practice. 

It rests on a twofold foundation, that is, there 
are two great truths to be accepted, two practices 
to be acquired, before we can reach the desired 
goal. If either of them be rejected or neglected, 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 39 

the art can never be learned. The first is, to 
make our will one with God's will ; the second to 
identify God's will with the occurrences of each 
moment. In other words, there is a double iden- 
tification to be wrought out, both ethically and 
practically, the identification of my will with 
God's will, and the identification of God's will 
with every event small or great. It will at once 
be seen that this brings our will into perfect 
accord with every event, precluding all friction, 
paving the way for perpetual triumph. If we 
behold and hail a living, loving will of our 
Heavenly Father in every minute happening of 
each second, we are in a constant attitude of 
welcoming gladness and genuine exuberance 
as we greet the day's unfoldings. We cannot 
possibly require more to make us happy than 
that our will should be continually done in all 
that comes on ; and such will infallibly be the 
case when God's will and ours are one, provided 
God's will is always done. To this latter point 
we must address ourselves a little later. It needs 
careful treatment, for very many have trouble 
with it, and the subject is attended with compli- 
cations. The former matter is simpler and may 
be more easily dispatched, for the theory is not 
difficult, however hard may be the practice. 

The theory is simple in this sense, that every 
one, at least every one who is at all likely to read 



40 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

this book, will readily admit that by creation, 
redemption, and preservation, we belong to God, 
we have no rights as against Him. He is the 
proprietor, we are the tenants. He is the owner, 
we are the stewards. He is the King, we 
are the subjects. It is He that hath made us, 
and not we ourselves ; we have been bought by 
precious blood ; for each breath that we draw we 
are indebted to His care. And, therefore, His 
will ought to be our will at every conceivable 
point. We do not, any of us, dispute this. We 
are all prepared to grant, also, that His will is 
always best, that we lose nothing by submission 
to Him, that in setting up our own rebellious will 
in any matter we are acting foolishly, we are 
preferring a lesser good to a greater, we are 
depriving ourselves of a blessing, we are choosing 
that which is every way inferior. Yet we con- 
stantly do it. Here is the puzzle and the mystery. 
It is amazing how fond we are of having our 
own way, irrespective of the divine will, irre- 
spective of real right. How prone we are to 
imagine that the sum of all happiness lies just 
there. What mistake could be greater? It 
springs from a feeling that we know best what 
is good for us; and that is not so at all. God 
could not take a surer way of compassing our 
ruin than by gratifying all our passing fancies, 
putting the reins of government into our foolish 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 41 

hands. We are by no means fit to take charge 
of our destinies. We are thoroughly deluded 
in supposing that if every wish could be gratified 
we should be perfectly happy. Our natural 
wishes for a multitude of things that seem at the 
moment desirable are the poorest possible guides 
to our permanent well-being. We know far too 
little in a dozen directions to have control of the 
matter. Our ignorance of the future and its 
complicated possibilities, this alone would make 
it out of the question for us always to choose 
wisely. Our shrinking from pain would make it 
wholly improbable that we should firmly apply 
the eventually healing but temporarily hurtful 
remedies for our moral maladies. The lancet, the 
plaster, the purge would never seem to us actu- 
ally necessary. We do not know ourselves w r ell 
enough to prescribe. And we are exceedingly 
apt to think that sunshine is always better than 
storm. 

The difficulties, then, in the way of bringing 
our will into oneness with God's are by no means 
small. We are not, all of us, so logically con- 
stituted that the mere statement of the above 
indisputable facts — that we ought to submit, and 
that it is better to submit — carries much practi- 
cal weight with us or moves us out of our long 
accustomed ruts. There needs to come some 
stress of feeling to impel us in the right direction. 



42 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

We must be mightily wrought upon from on high. 
We must see Jesus suffering, bleeding, dying, 
pleading for our redemption from all sin. A 
wave of emotion appears essential. And this 
emotion, to be a permanent and genuinely useful 
factor, must, as a rule, be the result of thought. 
Meditation is the daughter of retirement, and the 
mother of action. But for retirement we con- 
sider that we have no time, even if we have the 
disposition ; and meditation any way is, we say, 
not much in our line. Feeling may be strongly 
excited for the time by the contagion of a crowd, 
by the skilful manipulation of some accomplished 
operator, by the whirlwind of song, or the earth- 
quake of oratory ; but it often happens that God 
is not in these earthquakes and w r hirlwinds very 
decidedly, and there is no permanence to their 
effects. When the commotion is over things 
settle down on the old basis. No new truths 
have been firmly grasped, and so no resulting 
revolution in the life has been really accom- 
plished. The still small voice of deep conviction 
is generally heard in secret. It must be prepared 
for, invited, cherished, and obeyed. 

Just here, doubtless, is one chief reason why 
so few persons get a genuine grip, a permanent 
hold, on the higher things. Here is where the art 
comes in, where regular rules are needed, and 
persistent adherence to a well formulated plan is 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 43 

called for. It is at this point that camp-meetings 
and conventions find a philosophical basis for the 
great good they often accomplish. The atten- 
dants are shut away from their ordinary occupa- 
tions and compelled for a series of days to con- 
sider thoughtfully these deep matters of spiritual 
religion. Their attention being thus concentrated, 
the subject has a chance to make its due im- 
pression, feeling is aroused, and action is likely to 
follow. But large gatherings, or even small 
gatherings, are not essential for the putting into 
operation of this process. If a person will de- 
liberately set himself to read and think on these 
lines, he will, in consequence of such reading and 
thinking, be stirred with desire, directed as to 
methods, and put in the way of results. And the 
results will be likely to be more enduring than 
on the other plan, since the means used can be 
more readily repeated. For while conventions 
may be far away, or infrequent, the Bible and 
other good books are always at hand. 

The power to make good use of such literature, 
it may be said, is not given to all. Which is 
doubtless true. They who have it not will not be 
responsible for what, if used, it might have 
brought them. But more commonly than is per- 
haps supposed there is a sufficient germ of this 
power, which only needs proper cultivation to 
blossom forth in full vigor. We see no reason 



44 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

why people who can read the daily paper should 
not read the Scriptures. And there is almost 
always available in pastor or other religious 
friend a guide whose counsel, if complied with, 
will bring the seeker on into fuller and further 
light. One can always say to himself, I know 
that I have neglected my Bible shamefully, I 
have let the pressure of other matters crowd it 
out, when I could have managed, had my heart 
been set upon it, to get a little time each day 
for its perusal; I know I have lost ground be- 
cause of its neglect; I will begin from this hour 
to do differently; I will search diligently to see 
what sort of a man I ought to be and what pro- 
visions are made for my help; and I hereby 
covenant with God to follow forthwith wherever 
He may show me the path, confident that each 
step taken will bring me on where another is 
made plain. 

Whoever does this, we are very sure, will not 
be long left in darkness. Gods Spirit will take 
him in charge, illuminating the word, strengthen- 
ing his purpose, and giving him deliverance. Is it 
not perfectly feasible to do this ? Does not he who 
refuses to do it show that he has no desire what- 
ever to advance, in that he will not heed so simple 
a suggestion ? And must he not be left until in 
some way he becomes thoroughly ashamed of 
himself, or profoundly convinced of his deplorable 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 45 

mistake in living so far below his privilege, living 
in the gloomy cellars of God's house when he 
might be in the sunlit chambers? Why should 
so many prefer the cellars? Is it that they do 
not feel that the higher rooms are for them ? Is 
it that the exertion of climbing the stairs is be- 
yond their power? Or do they think that the 
advantages of the upper rooms will not repay for 
the effort? If they have known at all the love 
which Jesus has for them, how can they accuse 
Him of wanting to deprive them of such rich 
blessings ? If they have any love to Jesus how can 
they be willing to grieve Him so constantly as 
they do by thrusting away His proffers and dis- 
obeying His precepts? Sin remains as much a 
mystery in these more refined regions as in the 
grosser districts. It is unreasonable and horrible 
wherever seen, contrary to common sense and the 
laws of understanding, as well as to the laws of 
heaven and the happiness of men. 

This coming into oneness with the will divine 
has been variously termed consecration, self-re- 
nunciation, abandonment, and surrender. The 
words are sometimes discriminated a little, but 
they seem to us essentially the same. They ap- 
proach the subject from slightly different angles, 
and suggest various figures of speech, but the 
meaning is substantially alike. Perhaps a few di- 
rections or explanations may be in place just here 



46 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

as to how it can best be done. The object in 
hand is to become wholly the Lord's, to recognize 
to the utmost His rightful claims upon us, to 
take the one only position or attitude which con- 
science fully approves and which is the doorway 
to unspeakable blessing. It is not a small thing. 
It is not to be turned off rapidly or lightly, as 
though there were little depth and difficulty to 
it. There can hardly be too much deliberation 
and consideration given to the matter. We pro- 
pose the following heads for reflection: 

I. Our consecration should be unreserved. 
When our will is one with God's we shall will 
what God wills always, in everything, nothing 
less, nothing more, nothing else. There will be 
no reservation, hesitation, equivocation, or cessa- 
tion about it. The very smallest things must be 
included, down to the minutest particular. It is 
not the value of that which is withheld that makes 
the trouble but the spirit of withholding, which 
may find manifestation in the most unlooked-for 
quarters. It is usually some very small point of 
pride or self-will that blocks the way and prevents 
progress. We hold on to it, perhaps half-uncon- 
sciously. We turn our eyes another way, and de- 
clare that we behold nothing which is not given 
up. We try to persuade ourselves that it is of 
no imaginable importance, and may be safely dis- 
regarded. Perhaps it is a slight feeling of hard- 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 47 

ness toward a neighbor, an unsettled quarrel not 
worthy the name of quarrel, a coldness and stiff- 
ness, a touch of envy and jealousy and dislike 
which makes us ready to believe evil of the per- 
son, or even perhaps to speak evil concerning" 
him — this it is that stands in the way. Perhaps 
it is a cherished indulgence to which we have 
long been accustomed, which nearly everybody in 
our set looks upon as unobjectionable, about 
which there is fair opportunity for difference of 
opinion, but which we know that many good peo- 
ple condemn, and which is at least of doubtful 
propriety when tested by the highest standards of 
religion. 

We are liable to come up against a snag of this 
sort in a dozen different directions, if we pursue 
our researches relentlessly and are determined to 
get to the very bed rock in our investigations. To 
change the figure, if we will carry a lighted can- 
dle into every dark corner of our soul, peering 
into every nook and crevice and cranny, we shall 
be very sure to come upon some cobwebs at 
least, or some forgotten articles which we did 
not really know we possessed, much less had any 
liking for. But when we have discovered them, 
and dragged them out to the light of day, we must 
deal with them without mercy. There can be no 
sort of compromise. There must be a very clear 
understanding between ourselves and God as to 



48 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

who is master. He must have His way in every- 
thing — in things eaten and drunken, in every 
item of expenditure, every moment of time, every 
particle of influence, every question of example, in 
our apparel, our adorning, our associations and 
companionships, our words and looks, our busi- 
ness, our family, our most private hours, our 
most public doings. It will necessarily take quite 
a while to look over this whole field and consider 
the entire territory. But it needs to be done. 
Every question must be answered, every situation 
faced. We must put to ourselves some searching 
inquiries, such as, Am I willing to be poor, to be 
nothing in the sight of men, to have my name 
cast out as evil, to forfeit the respect of those in 
whose smiles I have basked, to go where God 
wants me to go even if it be to Africa or China 
or Greenland, to say what God wants me to say, 
even if it means that I shall be laughed at and 
disliked, to do what God wants me to do, even if 
it involves great pain, to be in all ways what God 
wants me to be? Some have found it profitable 
to make a detailed inventory in these various di- 
rections, to draw up a solemn covenant with 
God, signing it upon their knees. Anything is 
in order that helps us to realize most fully the 
weighty nature of the transaction, its profound 
significance, as constituting an epoch with us, a 
date that shall stand out in our days, a turning 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 49 

point, the time when we ceased to be a half-way 
Christian and became whole-hearted for God, 
when we said^ 

"Lord thy love, at last, hath conquered; 
None of self and all of Thee." 

2. Our consecration should be intelligent. This 
needs to be added because many people, while 
pursuing the course just recommended, have got 
all tangled up, befogged, mystified by a morbid 
scrupulosity which is not profitable. Sanity and 
spirituality — it cannot be said too often — need 
never be separated. We are never called upon 
to part with our common sense. Reason has 
never occasion to abdicate its throne, for it was 
given us from God to be our guide. There is 
no demand for fanaticism, properly so called, that 
is, for disregarding reason undei the plea of di- 
rect guidance from heaven, for acting upon im- 
pressions which one cannot be sure are from God. 
The fanatic is given over to wild notions under 
the influence of a heated imagination which he 
calls special divine inspiration. Many have been 
led astray here. They have treated the Bible with 
most unseemly freedom, considering themselves 
as so indwelt by the Spirit as to be lifted far 
above the book, authorized to twist its words into 
most unnatural meanings, paying no heed to what 
the writer must have intended to convey, using 



50 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

it as a sort of riddle book to be opened at 
random, a bundle of isolated phrases that may 
be manipulated to suit the mood of the hour or 
the exigencies of some pet theory. They ex- 
pect to attain ends without using the ordinary 
means connected by God with those ends ; to 
understand the Scriptures without studying them ; 
to speak properly in public without premedita- 
tion ; to reach maturity of Christian experience 
without growth ; to keep well although disregard- 
ing the laws of health ; and to get well although 
disregarding the laws of recovery. 

Many people get into trouble by conjuring up 
all sorts of hobgoblins, and then, becoming fright- 
ened at them, they retreat. This is one of Satan's 
favorite tricks. At his instigation they are ready 
to imagine that they will be called to make this, 
that or the other utterly improbable and practical- 
ly impossible sacrifice, from which they instinc- 
tively and perhaps very properly draw back. They 
get an idea that everything which is at all pleas- 
ant, or in any degree like other people, is to be 
abandoned, that they are to become scarecrows in 
appearance and maniacs in manner. The proper 
answer to all this nonsense is that God is a God 
of reason and a God of love, not an ogre, nor a 
despot, nor a fiend, nor a lunatic. He is not ly- 
ing in wait to take a mean advantage of us 
as soon as we put ourselves into His hands, to 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 51 

strip us bare of all that seems to make life worth 
having, to do us harm, or make us ridiculous 
without necessity, to take from us all our friends,, 
our family, our influence, our health. Nothing of 
the kind. He will never ask or command us to do 
a thing which He will not make clear to us is 
His blessed will, in regard to which He will not 
remove all reasonable doubt, and for which He 
will not give us, when the time comes, all needed 
strength. He will not give it to us now in ad- 
vance, for that is not His method, nor is it really 
possible. We may, in a way, let the future alone, 
for we are to live by the moment, and we can well 
afford to leave everything to His wisdom and 
love. After we have peered down, as well as we 
can, into the depths of our soul and become con- 
vinced that everything there is all right now, to 
the best of our knowledge and belief, nothing 
consciously withheld, a firm purpose there to 
live for God alone, then we can rest and be at 
peace, well assured that light will come and 
power will come as the necessity arises, opening 
up to us hour by hour. 

3. Our consecration should be irrevocable and 
yet progressive. It is important that the two 
words should be kept in mind together. Our 
dedication is once for all, never to be taken back, 
made with as full a perception as possible of all 
that is included in it, as full a forecasting of all 



52 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the probabilities in the case as we can compass, a 
finished transaction, not to be reopened. It is 
not to be made for a short time, for a few months, 
or until we get past some crisis, but for life, and 
for eternity. There must be no trifling with God. 
It is a covenant of blood, most sacred and bind- 
ing. It finds its parallel in the Hebrew custom 
when a bondservant, or slave, refused to receive 
his freedom at the time when such an opportu- 
nity was offered him and the master in token of 
his action, his binding choice, took him to the 
doorpost of the dwelling and there with an awl 
joined his ear to the post. His language then 
was, "Mine ears hast thou bored, I will not go 
out forever/' After that, "Lo, I come to do thy 
will" would be his only utterance, under all situ- 
ations. This sort of a covenant is one that sum- 
mons all our will power, and includes our total- 
ity of strength. With lips thin, teeth set, hands 
clenched, we cry, Death, if need be, but no sur- 
render to Satan, to doubt and fear, to sin of any 
kind. 

Such a consecration does not need to be repeat- 
ed in the same sense, but it does need to be re- 
viewed and revised from time to time, that it may 
be brought fully up to date, completed according 
to our advancing knowledge, made deeper and 
fuller as God gives more to put in. This is a 
very different thing from repeating it as though 



THE ART OF ALWAYS REJOICING 53 

something had been taken back or recalled. One 
may be entirely certain that he has done nothing 
of that kind, and yet may know that since the date 
of entire consecration, perhaps now years in the 
past, he has come to understand much more com- 
pletely what the entireness covers, and has come 
to have a larger personality to be offered. We 
may give all to God at twenty, but at thirty or 
forty may comprehend far better the wide-sweep- 
ing inclusiveness of the word. 

Some people are disposed to say, "I give to 
God all that I know and all that I don't know" ; 
and the words, perhaps, are not to be sharply 
criticised ; but a note of warning about them may 
well be sounded, for it seems to be an unquestion- 
able fact that we cannot make over to God what 
is wholly unknown to us with the same degree of 
effectiveness as we do what we know. We may 
repeat the words, but they will not carry any pre- 
cise significance to us. When rightly understood 
it is simply an expression of a present purpose to 
give to God whatever He reveals from time to 
time when that revealing shall come. We must 
watch closely all along in order actually to carry 
out the purpose as the occasion arises, and be 
fully ready to receive then the fresh light He may 
impart as to the increased thoroughness possible 
to be put into the surrender. 

A box is full in a general way when it is crowd- 



54 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

ed with cannon balls, but there is still room for 
plenty of bullets ; and when no more of them can 
be inserted a large quantity of shot can be put 
in ; then into the interstices left even by the shot, 
sand may be sprinkled, and in addition to that not 
a little water may be added; while on top of all 
a few rose leaves may be lightly flung. It is hard 
to get our hearts so full of love that there will not 
be room for a little more, a rose leaf or two. Our 
wills may be in line with God's as such things are 
crudely estimated by our undisciplined powers of 
measurement. But with further training of hand 
and eye we come to perceive that there is a math- 
ematical accuracy of adjustment which is far be- 
yond the former oneness, and perhaps still be- 
yond that a microscopic coincidence. To the soul 
that is covetously bent on the nearest possible ap- 
proach to absolute oneness with his Lord there is 
nothing too small to be taken into the account. 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE. 



THE ELIXIR. 



Teach me, my God and King, 

In all things Thee to see, 
And what I do in anything, 

To do it as for Thee. 

A man that looks on glass, 

On it may stay his eye, 
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, 

And then the heav'n espy. 

All may of Thee partake; 

Nothing can be so mean 
Which with this tincture (for Thy sake)] 

Will not grow bright and clean. 

A servant with this clause 

Makes drudgery divine, 
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, 

Makes that and th' action fine. 

This is the famous stone 

That turneth all to gold ; 
For that which God doth touch and own 

Cannot for less be told. 

George Herbert. 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE. 



We showed, in the previous chapter, that two 
things were necessary to give a complete com- 
mand of the theory and practice of perpetual joy. 
We claimed that he only could have this inestima- 
ble gift, or attainment, who submitted himself 
absolutely to the will divine, and was then able to 
identify this will with whatever came to him: 
for, in that case, as is perfectly clear, all the oc- 
currences and events of daily^ life expressing to 
him the present will of God, and his only atti- 
tude toward that will in all its shapes being one of 
joyful acceptance, because of the deep love of 
which it is the vehicle, there will be nothing to 
which he can object, and nothing which will not 
minister to his happiness. 

The second part of this double proposition, 
it will be at once seen, is fully as important as 
the first, fully as essential to the mastery of the 
art of always rejoicing. For, no matter how com- 
plete our union with the will of God, if we are 
not certain which of the happenings of life are 
to be regarded as His will, we are about as much 



58 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

at the mercy of events as we were before. Of 
what avail is it to say. with Faber, 

"I worship Thee, sweet Will of God, 
And all Thy ways adore," 

provided this "sweet will" only includes, in our 
view, a certain class of things, and many of those 
most trying are completely shut out. Or what 
boots it to say, with St. Paul, "We know that all 
things work together for good to them that love 
God/'' if we balk at the word "all" and except 
from its scope those things which are mingled 
with human malice or mistakes, either other peo- 
ple's or our own? To make us wholly impervious 
to the assaults of the foe we need a cast-iron 
creed at this point. We need, in some way, to be 
able to say, with perfect assurance and the com- 
pletest conviction, having thought it through and 
reasoned it out, God's will to me is seen in all 
by which I am touched, for the simple and suffi- 
cient reason that God is in every event, however 
small, however large, He is the power back of it, 
He is the producing cause. Can this conclusion 
be solidly reached, and unassailably held? We 
are confident that it can. and that it is of the 
utmost consequence to the Christian heart to 
trace the argument, that it may rest in the result. 
The deep necessities of practical piety seem 
to us to require a distinct, unequivocal recognition 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 59 

of the absolute sovereignty of God in the affairs 
of the world. Xot otherwise can there be that 
constant perception of the Divine Being as always 
appearing, even in the minutest events, which is 
so essential to any close walk with Him. There 
cannot be that direct dealing with Him so pro- 
motive of entire deliverance from the distresses 
that come when the provocations of men and the 
perversity of things fill the eye of the soul. God's 
promises cannot afford a sufficient basis for our 
trust, unless His power to carry them out to the 
very letter under all circumstances is put beyond 
question. Prayer will find its pinions clipped if 
any doubt whatever is cast upon the ability of the 
Father to succor His children. Our peace will 
suffer irretrievably if there is any loop-hole, even 
the slightest, for the possible defeat of God's pur- 
poses concerning us. Christian resignation un- 
der the minor adversities and little trials, as well 
as the greater troubles of life, becomes practically 
impossible unless we are quite sure that the hand 
of God, and not the hand of man or the devil, 
sends the calamity; and we can hardly be thus 
sure in any instance unless we are in even- in- 
stance. Only he can rejoice always, without the 
possibility of being pronounced a fool or a fanat- 
ic, who knows that always what touches him is 
a manifestation of the blessed will of his loving 
Father. This surety is the source and the only 



60 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

source, of the deepest peace, the highest exulta- 
tion, the warmest gratitude, the clearest hope, the 
strongest trust, the prof oundest patience, the com- 
pletest calm, and the supremest beauty that can 
crown the religious life. It is the firm founda- 
tion of all personal piety, the unfailing fountain 
of the sweetest, noblest, truest devotion. 

This being so, we shall surely be desirous to 
grasp, if we can, a truth so fraught with benefit 
in our daily walk. We shall apply ourselves to 
the task of tracing the argument with a mind well 
disposed towards its acceptance. It hinges whol- 
ly, so far as the philosophic aspect of it is con- 
cerned, on the firm establishment of just two posi- 
tions. The first is, that God is the source of all 
motion in the physical universe. It may be said, 
we think, with confidence, that this is now the 
practically unanimous conclusion of those best 
qualified to have an opinion on the subject, or at 
least of all Christian theists, if not of all who rec- 
ognize the existence of God at all. They are 
substantially agreed that there must be a Power 
working through the mechanism of the universe, 
and that this power is the Being we call God, that 
He is the only ultimate force in material matters, 
and hence the sole responsible author of all physi- 
cal action. This view, not. a very recent one, has 
been constantly strengthening its hold on the 
men of the learned world for a long time. Dr. 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 61 

William B. Carpenter, President of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science a 
generation ago, said, in the second chapter of his 
work on Mental Physiology, "All the phenomena 
of nature are manifestations of the constant and 
all-pervading energy of a Mind of infinite perfec- 
tion. The phenomena of the universe are but a 
continual revelation of the universal presence 
and ceaseless agency of the Deity. The recogni- 
tion of the universal and all-controlling agency of 
the Deity, and of His presence in creation rather 
than on the outside of it, is a great truth. The 
agencies of nature are the ministers of an all-wise 
and all-powerful Ruler." Professor Alfred Rus- 
sel Wallace said twenty-five or thirty years ago, 
"It does not seem an improper conclusion that all 
force is will force, and thus the whole universe is 
not merely dependent on^ but actually is, the will 
of one supreme Intelligence." 

The position of the accredited science of the 
present day can probably be stated by no one more 
fairly representative than Dr. William North 
Rice, Professor of Geology in Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, from whose book, "Christian Faith in an 
Age of Science," issued not long ago, we make 
the following quotations. He writes, "We find 
the ground of all existence in the will of a per- 
sonal God." "Matter has no existence apart from 
the continuous energy of divine will upholding 



62 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

all things by the word :: His power." "All phil- 
osophical theists must hold that the cause :: the 
uniformities :: nature is :: be found in the will 
of an immanent Intelligence whose plans arc 
changeless because His wisdom is perfect from all 
eternity. Xot an atom of matter has ever changed 
its position but in obedience tc His "Pr: 

idence is not an exceptional interference with the 
course :: nature: the course :: nature is itself 
providence. Law and providence are only two 
phases :f the sent- truth "God's providence 
extends to all details of individual experience. ,, 
'To the Infinite Intelligence all and each are alike 
present." "As nothing is toe great for His power, 
so nothing is toe small for His attention. He 
guides the flakes :f star-dust slowly gathering 
into worlds. He marks :t: less the fall of the 
sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads. Xo 
meteor, no animalcule, nc atom, escapes the in- 
finite watchfulness :f :ntnis rience. or is forgot- 
ten by the all-embracing wisdom of providence. 
"No crime can be consummated — no sinful pur- 
pose can obtain objective fulfillment — unless the 
result contribute to the advancement of the eter- 
nal plans of Gc i 'Surely the wrath :f man shall 
praise thee: the remainder of wrath shall thou 
restrain.'' We are bound, then, to recognize as 
providential those experiences that rente to us 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 63 

as the result of the follies and sins of others or 
of ourselves." 

Philosophy and science join heartily, hand with 
hand, in affirming these most important and most 
comforting truths. Dr. Borden P. Bowne, Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy in Boston University, who 
stands among the foremost of American think- 
ers, in his recently issued volume, "The Imma- 
nence of God/' has a great deal on this theme, 
only a little of which can we take space to quote. 
He says, 'The supernatural is the ever present 
ground and administrator of nature; nature is 
simply the form under which the Supreme Rea- 
son and Will manifest themselves, a fixed form of 
the Divine causality, of the living Will which 
worketh hitherto and worketh evermore ; that 
living Will by which all things stand, and from 
which they forever proceed." "God is the ever 
present agent in the on-going of the world, and 
nature is but the form and product of His ceaseless 
activity. We are in God's world, and the ultimate 
reason why anything is, or changes, or comes to 
pass, must be sought in the will and purpose of 
that God in whom all things live and move and 
have their being." "Providence covers all events. 
Sometimes the Divine purpose seems manifest, 
while at other times it is hidden. The purpose, 
however, is equally real, and equally controlling 
at all times, though not equally manifest." "If 



64 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

there be any providence it must be special, a 
providence in general would be no providence at 
all. Any real providence in our lives must specify 
itself into perfectly definite and special ordering 
of events, or it vanishes altogether. All provi- 
dences are special providences, or they are noth- 
ing; if there be purpose in anything, there is 
purpose in everything. The creative plan must 
include all its details, and the immanent creative 
will must specifically realize all its special de- 
mands. Both philosophy and religion unite in 
this view." "We are in the hands of Him who 
made us; and all things and events immediately 
depend upon Him. He never grows weary or 
forgets. Every life is included in the divine plan. 
Every life is as intimately near and present to the 
divine thought and care as it would be if all the 
rest were away." "Nature itself is providence. 
We must see a divine causality in all things, and 
the naturalness of the divine working. God 
works His will in history, not apart from men, 
but through men and in partnership with them; 
and the work is no less divine on that account." 
Theologians and preachers, old and young, Ar- 
minian as well as Calvinistic, are outspoken on 
the same side of this matter. John Wesley said, 
"True resignation is to embrace all events good 
and bad as His will." "All circumstances are 
under the wise direction of God, who allots to 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 65 

everyone what is most expedient for him." "God 
orders all things. As God made the world, so He 
governs the world, and everything that is in it, 
and all men, good and bad, little and great. God 
is all in all." "God is the true author of all the 
motion that is in the universe. God is the life 
of everything that lives, in any kind or degree. 
He is the foundation of the life of animals, the 
power by which the heart beats and the circulat- 
ing juices flow. He is the fountain of all the 
life which man possesses in common with the 
other animals." "We are to acknowledge the 
hand of God in whatsoever instruments He makes 
use of. It makes little difference whether He 
executes His purpose by the powers of heaven 
and hell, or by the mistakes, carelessness, or 
malice of men. If a destroying angel marches 
forth against a town or country, it is God who em- 
powers him to destroy. If bad men distress one 
or more of their fellow-creatures the ungodly are 
a sword of His. If fire, hail, wind, or storm be 
let loose upon the earth, they only fulfill His 
word, so certain it is that there is no evil in any 
place which the Lord, in this sense, hath not 
done." 

In "The Christian Faith/' published a few 
months ago by a disciple of Wesley, Dr. Olin A. 
Curtis, Professor of Systematic Theology in 
Drew Theological Seminary, we find the same 



66 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

note sounded. He says that "all objective things" 
are to be looked at "as mere causal points where 
God is, and where God works" ; "the universe is 
entirely and constantly dynamic of God, nothing 
other than God in action" ; "all things are activi- 
ties of the living God"; "God the only force in 
the world"; "God the cause of the cosmos, its 
present force, its life, its beauty"; outside the 
realm of the volitions "there is no causation 
other than that of the divine will." This "Chris- 
tian monism," he says, "the average man under 
his superficial style of thinking," can scarcely 
grasp; but it is true and extremely important 
nevertheless. Dean Goulburn of the Anglican 
Church writes, "The occurrences of each day, 
however unlooked-for, however contrary to ex- 
pectation, are God-sent, and those which affect 
you sent especially and with discrimination to 
yourself." Canon Kingsley affirms "that God can 
and does arrange by a perpetual providence every 
circumstance whatsoever, so making laws take 
effect only when and where He chooses, I believe 
utterly." "One thing we must keep up, if we in- 
tend to be anything like witnesses for God, that 
is, the continual, open verbal reference of every- 
thing, even to the breaking of a plate, to God 
and God's providence, as. the Easterns do." "I 
believe not only in special providence, but in the 
whole universe as one infinite complexity of spe- 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 67 

cial providences. His favorite expression for na- 
ture was "the acted will of God," or "the will 
of God revealed in things." 

These quotations must suffice. It should be 
distinctly understood, however, that they are only 
a few out of the great multitude that might easily 
be given, so widespread has come to be the accep- 
tance of this truth, and the realization of its vast 
value on many accounts. May we not now con- 
sider that the reader, who has carefully perused 
these words, is satisfied as to the entire tenable- 
ness of the first of the two positions which we are 
interested in establishing, the rock foundation for 
his faith and the inexhaustible fountain of his 
joy? God is the responsible author and origi- 
nator of each occurrence in the physical or ma- 
terial world, whether that occurrence be in con- 
nection with human activity or entirely divorced 
therefrom, and every event is, in the strictest 
sense of the term, a providence. 

We proceed, now, to the second of the positions 
referred to above. This must be grasped with as 
much firmness as the first if we are to escape the 
difficulty which has no doubt already occurred to 
the reader, and led him to protest, perhaps, in 
spirit, against the proposition laid down. He 
has been saying to himself, Does not this theory 
make God the author of sin, the responsible 
agent for all the iniquity in the world, all the 



68 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

wickedness, even that of the foulest and most 
horrible description, and could there be any blas- 
phemy worse than this? Such would indeed be 
blasphemy unspeakable and unthinkable. It has, 
however, no place whatever in the theory ; it only 
seems to, so long as we form no clear conception 
as to what sin is. Our second position, then, is 
this : sin resides only in the will ; it is a wrong 
volition, an evil choice, a decision to disobey God, 
choosing in a way contrary to the divine approval. 
A little reflection will show that sin cannot con- 
sist of any mere external action, no matter what 
that action may be, any motion of bones or mus- 
cles. These outward movements have no moral 
character whatever. They may be produced by a 
galvanic battery. The sin lies back of the out- 
ward act, and resides in the motive or intention. 
Two persons may do precisely the same outward 
act, the one of them doing it sinfully, and the 
other with perfect innocence. Nay, the same per- 
son may at different times do the same thing with 
directly opposite ends in view. Two men may 
each give money to a third, precisely the same 
external act in both cases, but the first man gives 
it to relieve distress, the second to procure mur- 
der ; and it is plain that the different moral char- 
acter of the two men would be indicated not by 
the outward action, identical in the two, but by 
the different intentions which lay behind. A 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 69 

good man may administer arsenic to a person as 
a medicine to heal him ; a bad man may adminis- 
ter arsenic to a person as a poison to kill him. 
One preacher may declare God's truth from the 
love of it, or from devotion to its divine Author; 
while another may declare the same truth, per- 
haps in the same words, moved by the love of per- 
sonal praise, or the selfish desire of preferment. 

This idea is by no means novel, and yet it 
proves to be one hard for the average, or un- 
trained, mind to grasp and hold in the face of 
appearances, and of the common usage of human 
talk. We are so accustomed to hearing the ac- 
tions of men ascribed to their unrestrained, un- 
controlled power, and to hearing these actions 
called sinful, that we are much startled to hear 
the correctness of these expressions challenged, 
and to be told that things are altogether different 
from what they seem. It takes us quite a while 
to get accustomed to the thought that, strictly 
speaking, there are no sinful actions but only sin- 
ful volitions, or sinful persons, and that man alone 
is responsible for the volitions, while God alone is 
responsible for the actions. 

It is a fact that the terms moral and immoral, 
innocent and guilty can be applied with entire 
propriety only to men and women, to free moral 
agents; they cannot be applied to deeds except in 
an accommodated sense, by a convenient figure of 



70 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

speech. We cannot ordinarily do without the 
figure, and in popular discourse it is proper 
enough to use it ; indeed, we must use it if we are 
to be understood. But when we wish for sci- 
entific precision of language, to get at the exact 
truth, the figure must certainly be discarded. We 
observe this rule in many other matters. For ex- 
ample, everybody says that the sun rises and 
sets. And in the loose, popular, colloquial sense 
it does. Men will always speak of it as so doing, 
and properly enough; such speech is sufficiently 
accurate for ordinary usage and is perfectly un- 
derstood. But in the strict, scholarly, scientific 
sense, of course, it is not correct ; and when men 
are using language of precision they speak of the 
earth's motion and not of the sun's, as the cause 
of our day and night. The rotundity of the earth, 
and the swiftness with which it and we are whirl- 
ing through space, are similar truths which we 
constantly ignore in common language. In like 
manner the strict truth that men are responsible 
only for their volitions, and not for outward acts 
and events, cannot, as a general thing, be made 
much use of in ordinary conversation or preach- 
ing. But it is very important that it be held firm- 
ly in mind by those capable of understanding it, 
and be presented where it is likely to do good. 
Especially is its perception important for those 
desiring to apprehend the doctrine of divine prov- 



EVERY EVENT A PROVIDENCE 71 

idence, and to get from it the consolation which 
it holds for distressed humanity. For this blessed 
doctrine seems inextricably bound up with 
this distinction, and stripped of much of its power 
where the distinction is denied or overlooked. 
We are confident that it will pay our readers well 
to go over this chapter, if necessary, several times 
and master it thoroughly, testing it at all points 
until completely convinced of its absolute truth. 
Then their belief will rest on a bed-rock founda- 
tion which nothing can undermine, and they can 
view with perfect equanimity all the doubts and 
fears w T hich so continually surge in upon them. To 
make the matter entirely clear, however, some 
ether points need explanation, and another chap- 
ter must be devoted to these. 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND. 



SOME TIME. 



Some time, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

And sun and stars forevermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned, 

The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash before us out of life's dark night, 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue; 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right, 

And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath 

Is not the sweetest gift God sends his friend; 
And that sometimes the sable pall of death 

Conceals the fairest boon his love can send. 
If we could push ajar the gates of life, 

And stand within, and all God's workings see, 
We could interpret all this doubt and strife, 

And for each mystery could find a key! 

But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart ! 

God's plans like lilies pure and white unfold; 
We must not tear the close shut leaves apart, — 

Time will reveal the chalices of gold. 
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 

Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, 
When we shall clearly see and understand, 

I think that we shall say, "God knew the best !" 

. Mary Riley Smith. 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND. 

We are well aware that the theory of Provi- 
dence, w T hose main features we explained in the 
previous chapter, is more radical and uncompro- 
mising than that usually presented, and hence may 
startle or even shock some of our readers. They 
will at first, perhaps, be even repelled by it 
through a failure to grasp its real meaning, or 
comprehend the operations it contains. It is not 
unusual, indeed, to hear ministers trying to com- 
fort those who have been subjected to much trial 
by assuring them that it was not God who had 
sent these things upon them, that God had noth- 
ing to do with it, that their kind heavenly Father 
would not dream of doing any such thing. It had 
come altogether and solely from Satan. And the 
sufferer, strange as it seems to the writer, would 
appear to get no little consolation from this view, 
and to prefer to think that he was in the hands of 
the devil rather than in the hands of the Lord. 
His confused mind doubtless deemed that there 
was no other way to save the benevolence of God 
except by denying His omnipotence, by greatly 
limiting His power; and he would rather the 



76 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Deity should be kind, kind in the only fashion he 
could understand, kind in that He always gave 
him pleasant things, than have One perfectly able 
to carry out all His plans if those plans were to 
be beyond the creature's small intelligence. 

To the writer it appears altogether better to 
save both God's benevolence and power by the 
confession of our utter inability to comprehend 
the depth and breadth and length and height of 
His ways. It need cost us no pangs to admit that 
we are finite while He is infinite, that we are very 
ignorant while He is all-wise, and that we see but 
a day while He sees eternity. Surely it is noth- 
ing derogatory to the character of God to suppose 
that He has all-sufficient reasons hidden from us 
for doing things which from our standpoint could 
not be defended. 

What more natural than that many things oc- 
cur in the wide sweep of His operations which 
must for the time be dark to us ; w T hat more fool- 
ish than to demand that He instantly explain to 
us all His dealings on pain of forfeiting our con- 
fidence. We see that earthly parents could not 
do this to their infant children, and a far greater 
distance separates the Infinite Being from us than 
separates us from our little ones. God conceals 
His purposes, or at least His methods, that we 
may walk by faith, not sight. His arrangement 
is admirably adapted to help us in the cultivation 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 77 

of humility, and patience, and hope, and resigna- 
tion. It is only pride and arrogance that demand 
to know instead of trusting. And it is exceeding- 
ly strange that any of God's children should jump, 
as it were, into the arms of Satan for comfort, 
when God sends hard things upon them, rather 
than confess their own ignorance. Of course we 
cannot understand all of God's ways. But it is 
very poor policy, indeed, to resort in our per- 
plexity to explanations that will not stand calm 
scrutiny, and that eventually make impossible any 
settled peace of mind. 

Many who count themselves good people, who 
say weekly the Apostle's Creed wherein they for- 
mally acknowledge Father, Son and Holy Ghost 
as the Trinity they worship, do really, in their 
lives, worship a totally different trinity. We 
speak not of the worldlings who worship Fame, 
Fashion and Fortune, but of fairly devout per- 
sons who are far from turning their backs, as 
they think, on God. To Him they give a portion 
of their adoration, when He does the things that 
suit them. But when He does things which do 
not fall in with their ideas, which seem to them 
evil and cruel and unjust, then straightway the 
devil takes His, place, and to him is ascribed the 
authorship of events. He is erected into a power 
quite great enough to justify the trembling wor- 
ship paid him in pagan lands by millions of terri- 



78 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

fied devotees, and quite great enough to defeat, at 
his will, the most cherished plans of the Al- 
mighty. 

And the third member of this trinity is Nature, 
to whom is given credit for everything which 
bears the stamp of regularity and uniformity. 
We hear a great deal from such people about 
"Nature's laws," and to listen to them you would 
surely think that God had nothing to do with the 
ordinary ongoing of the seasons, or the changes 
in the weather, or the processes of growth and de- 
cay, and such like. And, least of all, do they ad- 
mit that it is God who produces earthquakes, cy- 
clones and volcanic eruptions. All of these, with 
them, are most emphatically and exclusively the 
work of the mysterious deity they call Nature. 
No habit could be more destructive of true and 
habitual communion with God. It is much to be 
lamented that so many good but thoughtless peo- 
ple fall into the ways of the ungodly secular 
papers with their idiotic and heathenish talk about 
"Jupiter Pluvius" and "the clerk of the weather," 
phrases which would seem to be coined and used 
for the express purpose of getting rid of God. 
Far better for us is it to accept the Bible usage 
which ascribes to God the falling of the rain, the 
springing of the grass, the . clothing of the lilies 
with beauty, the feeding of the ravens, the satis- 
fying the desires of every living thing. This 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 79 

brings us into communion with Him at all points, 
and makes life rich indeed. There need be no 
confusion in this matter. All is law. All is God. 
It is not the law that works ; it is God that works 
according to law, that is, according to His own 
fixed principles and plans and methods. Law 
does nothing ; nature does nothing. God does all. 
Let us hold firmly to the divineness of the natural, 
and the naturalness of the divine. 

Some who are timid in their mental make-up^ 
and not very logical in their processes of thought, 
find relief in attempting to draw a distinction be* 
tween God's causative and permissive provi. 
dences, between what He permits and what He 
actually does or purposes. They deem it prefer- 
able to say, with reference to events that are con* 
nected with sin or calamity, that God permits 
them. They seem to think that the burden of the 
world's painful occurrences — the shipwrecks, the 
explosions, the collisions, the conflagrations, the 
hurricanes, the earthquakes, the epidemics, the 
acts connected with violence and crime — can thus 
be shifted from God's shoulders, if He be said 
simply to permit them. 

But the distinction, though it has a truth at its 
basis, and is well enough for popular effect, is not 
strictly tenable in this form. There cannot be 
practically any difference of importance between 
permitting a thing and actually doing it, provided 



80 j THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the person who is said to permit it has it in his 
power to prohibit. If he can prohibit and does 
not choose, he virtually assumes the responsibility 

of the action : he says, under the present circum- 
stances, this action is better than any other, and 
better than inaction. Archbishop Whately, whose 
keen, calm, judicial intellect was rarely, if ever, 
befogged by the ambiguities of words, saw this 
point clearly, and writes, in one of his notes on 
Bacon's Essays, "Whatever happens must be ac- 
cording to the will of the Most High, since He 
does not interpose to prevent it." And who will 
have the hardihood to say, with reference to any 
calamity whatsoever, God could not have pre- 
vented that? The Almighty has such multitudi- 
nous resources, such numberless ways of work- 
ing, that He never can be at a loss to carry out 
His plans in nature. As Wesley says, ''We are 
assured that whatsoever God wills He can never 
want instruments to perform, since He is able 
even of these stones to raise up instruments to 
do His pleasure.'" 

It is true that God does not propose ordinarily 
to work miracles or to stand in the way of so- 
called natural results : He prefers, for wise rea- 
sons of discipline and training to us, that natural 
causes, as we term them, should work to their 
customary ends. But in so deciding He practi- 
cally adopts and sanctions the end reached, so 



i 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 81 

that it becomes His own doing for which He is 
plainly responsible. The common sense of the 
world endorses the proverb that he who does a 
thing through another virtually does it himself, 
and whatever a being with perfect power to pre- 
vent deliberately permits, thereby becomes as 
much his own as though no other one were con- 
cerned in it. 

If I hold securely leashed in my hand a dog 
whose whole desire is to get at the cat crouching 
before him, and I, with full power to keep the 
dog where he is, and with full knowledge of w 7 hat 
will occur if I do not thus keep him, choose to 
open my hand and let him kill the cat, it is idle 
to say that I did not myself kill the cat as really 
and effectively as if I had taken it by the throat 
and strangled it. Hence it seems wholly proper 
to affirm that when God, with full power to pre- 
vent perpetually in His hands, permits any voli- 
tion to eventuate in the action desired by the vo- 
litioner, He sanctions the action, though not the 
volition, and assumes the responsibility of it. 
"There is no cause for us to try to prove an alibi 
for the Omnipresent. God does not shirk the 
responsibility for the universe." He does not 
simply permit the action, He appoints it; He does 
not merely allow, He orders; He does not only 
suffer, He sends ; so that it comes to pass as He 
pleases, and promotes His glory. 



82 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

He permits that which is really sin, the inward 
evil volition, in a very different sense from that 
in which He permits the outward action. His 
absolute autocratic power exerted on the one, the 
volition, would affect our free agency in a very 
different way from what it does when exerted on 
the other, the action, destroying free agency in 
the first place, but not in the second. Nor can 
we for a moment imagine God the direct, respon- 
sible author of a malicious or lustful volition, 
while we can imagine Him, without inconsistency, 
the direct author of any external action what- 
ever, for mere actions have no moral character. 
It may be said, then, that God, in deciding, once 
for all, to permit sin, decided to do in His own 
special realm of matter whatsoever this deep un- 
alterable fact of sin rendered necessary for car- 
rying out His grand designs. Hence, in a loose 
sense, accommodated to the popular understand- 
ing, He permits the actions to which sin prompts, 
but in reality He Himself does whatever is made 
necessary by the disturbing hateful presence of 
rebellious wills. 

Can we say, then, "All that is is right" ? Not 
without explanation. The phrase has a truth in it, 
but is easily misunderstood. The whole scene of 
the world and human history is not the work of 
God alone, except in the sense that it is the best 
He could do with the materials at His disposal. 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 83 

Sin having entered against His will, all that has 
followed is what that fact necessitates or occa- 
sions. All is right in our present circumstances, 
in view of the discipline needed, and the final ad- 
justment of rewards and penalties. It may be 
said that sin, or the sinner, indirectly controls 
some events by compelling God to do far other- 
wise than He would if there were no sin. Satan 
and wicked men, by their evil courses, make it 
essential for God to punish them, but He keeps 
the rod and the reins in His own hands. Our 
volitions, those of men in general, are the occa- 
sions for special activities in the world, which ac- 
tivities, causally considered, are forms of the di- 
vine agency. 

Events, then, as they meet us from day to day, 
embody the mind or purpose of God in its pres- 
ent phase, so to speak ; not as it was in the begin- 
ning, nor as it will be hereafter. Heaven before 
the fall of Lucifer, expresses His primal or abso- 
lute mind — that which He desires and in which 
He delights, that which meets His approval and 
sympathy ; earth expresses His present or relative 
mind, that which is best under the circumstances, 
that to which He has been forced by the condi- 
tions beyond His control, the perverse volitions 
of free agents independent in their choices. So 
that the events of life may be said to accord with 
His relative and actual, though not with His abso- 



84 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

lute, ideal will. They represent His plans in their 
present stage of development, but not at all as they 
will be when His efforts at the renovation of the 
world are crowned with success. Still they are 
His plans, and the events are more truly directly 
His than they are anybody else's. Neither evil 
men nor evil spirits have any power to determine 
or direct the actual course of occurrences, though 
they may defy omnipotence in the sphere of their 
wills, and by the sin there perpetrated greatly 
influence the actions of God. There is a very 
important difference, it seems to us, between the 
sinner's directly controlling events himself and 
his so willing that God deems it best, under the 
circumstances, to act in such a way. The outward 
act, to be sure, may often be the same, but the 
immediate power behind it is very different, and 
hence the feelings with which we can contemplate 
the transaction will also be very different. The 
trust and comfort and Joy which fill the devout 
heart as it is thus brought into imxnediate contact 
at all points with its Maker, able to see His lov- 
ing hand in all, are unspeakably precious, and 
very different from the emotions that would arise 
if the vision had to be confined to human or dia- 
bolical agency. We may say that God permits 
the evil volitions of men, and all the accruing ills 
of the universe, because He created men knowing 
what they would do, and determined to create 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 85 

notwithstanding the evil that would result, be- 
cause foreseeing that greater good would in the 
end be wrought out, and that a world containing 
sin would be better than no world at all, or a 
world of mere machines without free agency. Sin 
was permitted, we may say, because to make a 
universe in such a way as to prevent it, would 
have necessitated the rejection of a greater good. 
For the same reason probably sinful beings are 
continued in existence. But in no other way than 
this can God be said even to permit or suffer that 
which is really their sin, namely, the perverse re- 
bellious choices of their free wills. 

Still another explanation may perhaps relieve 
the mind of some. It has reference to our own 
active duties. The grandest truth can be easily 
turned into the most mischievous lie if it be taken 
in the wrong spirit, or by the wrong handle, and 
used in a perverse way. Antinomianism ever 
stands over against the truth of God's sover- 
eignty, and seeks to find in it some excuse for its 
own license, some justification for its own wicked- 
ness. Hence it must be carefully remembered 
that w r e are held to the strictest accountability for 
every sinful volition, including every wilful omis- 
sion of duty. The fact that God sanctions the 
outward act can in no way be pleaded in extenu- 
ation of our guilt for yielding to the evil passion 
which is ours alone. As well might Satan plead 



86 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

God's sanction for his malice and pride because 
God does not see fit to blot him out of existence. 
Whatever God may think best to do or not to do 
with our limbs, which are under His control, does 
not affect at all our sole responsibility for the 
wicked tempers which we cherish and the free 
consent which we have given to temptation. 
Hence the truth of God's responsibility for ex- 
ternal acts, or, in other words, His absolute 
sovereignty in the realm of matter, when used as 
a shield against oppression, a refuge from the 
storm of persecution, is a sound, sufficient de- 
fence, an unfailing solace ; but if it should be em- 
ployed as a sword or a bludgeon by the perse- 
cutor or other evil-doer it would be a twisting of 
the truth into falsity, and a wresting of it to his 
own destruction, because for him the intention is 
the essential thing whereby he will be tried, and 
whereby he should try himself. 

It will thus be seen that the chief value of the 
doctrine lies in enabling us to endure, not to do. 
It has a much more practical connection with our 
receptivity than with our activity. The latter 
will not be essentially affected by it. For, while 
force or physical action is never absolutely at 
the bidding of human volition, never under the 
supreme control of our will, so that it invariably 
and necessarily follows the course man orders, 
yet, as a matter of fact, it ordinarily does so. Man 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 87 

has no power to do (outwardly) just as he 
pleases in spite of God, but this freedom of ex- 
ternal action is not obstructed or circumscribed 
except in special cases, when there is no other 
way open to God by which He can carry out His 
plans. But since this way is always in His 
power as a final resort, it is proper to say that 
the ultimate authoritative control and responsibil- 
ity is His alone. And the external act is man's, 
properly speaking, only in the sense that his vo- 
lition gave occasion for the putting forth of this 
particular power by God at this particular time 
and place. It is a prearranged harmony, even as 
in the case of prayer, where my special petition- 
ing gives the occasion for the special putting 
forth of God's power in some ways that would 
not otherwise be put forth, though the power is 
still God's, not mine. 

It will also be seen, we trust, that it would be 
a very sad mistake, and a most improper per- 
version of this doctrine, to suppose that it encour- 
aged inactivity, or excused laziness. God is cer- 
tainly in all events, so that they manifest His pres- 
ent purpose, but we, who are bound to be "work- 
ers together with Him," have no right to con- 
sider anything an event until we have done our 
very best to make it what it should be. The in- 
evitable, that which is the result of our utmost 
exertions in the right cause, is the only thing 



88 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

which we are justified in regarding as the ex- 
pressed will of God. Cheerful acquiescence with 
that is a manifest duty and a blessed privilege. 
But until an event is practically inevitable (the 
determining of which point must be left to each 
man's best judgment) no one has any business to 
bring God's sovereignty into the question, or 
to plead divine responsibility as a bar to his own 
faithful exertions. 

Is it well to speak of special providences ? Not 
unless we understand just what we mean by it. 
It is certainly much better to see and say that all 
events are a chain of providences. The special 
providence theory, as generally held, utterly 
breaks down on close examination. If we mean, 
indeed, by special providence that some part of 
God's dealings or leadings, on account of peculiar 
circumstances, especially impressed us — very well. 
But it is not well if we forget that those events 
in our lives which do not strike us in so marked 
a manner are, nevertheless, just as much provi- 
dences, just as much sent or directed by the good 
hand of God. In fact, we should hold with great 
firmness, in the face of the common thought to 
the contrary, and in spite of all appearances, the 
truth that everything which comes to us without 
a single exception is a providence, a Godsend. 
He who attempts to pick and choose among the 
events of life, assigning this to providence and 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 89 

that to some other source, whether chance or fate 
or men or devils, attempts an impossibility, misses 
the meaning of the divine word, destroys the 
value of the promises, and dethrones Deity. 

As to the divine word in the matter we have 
hitherto said very little, but it is not because there 
is any poverty of passages to be quoted. Just the 
contrary. There are very, very many. In giving 
now a small selection of them it must be under- 
stood that there are multitudes of others which 
will occur to those familiar with the Scriptures. 
"The Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev. 
xix. 6). "Our God is in the heavens; He hath 
done whatsoever He hath pleased" (Ps. CXV. 3). 
"Whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He, in 
heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and in all deep 
places" (Ps. CXXXV. 6). "The Most High 
ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to 
whomsoever He will" (Dan. IV. 25). No doc- 
trine will meet the demands of these and similar 
texts affirming God's sovereignty in His creation, 
which rules out from the domain of providence 
even the smallest occurrences, though they be no 
larger or more important than the taking of a 
single step or the falling of a sparrow, or the 
plucking of one silken hair from an infant's head. 

In Prov. XVI. 1, 9, 33 ; XIX. 21 ; XX. 24, we 
have these words: "The plans of the heart be- 
long to man, but the answer of the tongue is from 



90 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Jehovah'' (A. R. V.) "A man's heart deviseth 
his way but Jehovah directeth his steps," 'The 
lot is cast unto the lap, but the whole disposing 
thereof is of Jehovah/' "There are many devices 
in a man's heart, but the counsel of Jehovah that 
shall stand." "A man's goings are of Jehovah ; 
how, then, can man understand his way?" In 
other words, the devices, intentions, plans, voli- 
tions of men are purely in their own control. 
They constitute character; they secure responsi- 
bility; but the words, the goings, the steps, the 
outward actions, strictly conform to the "counsel 
of the Lord," for thus only can He rule in the 
earth. 

Said the Lord Jesus to Pilate, 'Thou couldst 
have no power at all against me except it were 
given thee from above" (John, XIX. n). Pilate 
thought he had much power, just as wicked rulers 
think now that they can proceed as they like 
against the good ; but they are every moment in 
God's almighty hand, and can do only that which 
is "given" them to do. 

The wise words of the pious Job (I. 21, 22, 
II. 10) express the same deep truth: 'The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be 
the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not 
nor charged God foolishly." "What! shall we 
receive good at the hand of God and shall we not 
receive evil? In all this did not Job. sin with his 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 91 

lips." How many in these days, not so well in- 
structed as the old Arabian Sheikh, would say it 
was charging God foolishly to ascribe to Him 
the evil, that is, the pain, as well as the pleasure 
of life, and to assert that He, and not the devil, 
or bad men, took away their property or friends. 

To the same purport are the words of the 
Psalmist (Ps. LXXVL 10) : "Surely the wrath 
of man shall praise thee, the remainder of wrath 
shalt thou restrain" (or "gird upon thee," R. V.). 
By "wrath" here is clearly meant not the inward 
passion of the heart, for that angry passion never 
praises God, but the outward results of that pas- 
sion. Those results God invariably turns to the 
furtherance of His own purposes ; and when He 
has no purpose to be served in the case,. He "re- 
strains'''* the wrath, that is, prevents its outward 
manifestation, and the angry man finds all the 
avenues through which he seeks to vent his spite 
unaccountably shut against him. 

Well illustrating this passage are the expres- 
sions used in Acts II. 23, IV. 27, 28, XIII. 29, 
concerning the crucifixion of Jesus, where the ac- 
tions springing from the wrath of man were not 
restrained because the glory of God was to be sub- 
served by them. "Him being delivered up by the 
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, 
ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and 
slay.'" "For of a truth against thy holy servant 



92 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and 
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the peoples 
of Israel, were gathered together to do whatso- 
ever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to 
come to pass." "And when they had fulfilled all 
things that were written of Him, they took Him 
down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb." 

In line with these others, and explained on the 
same principles, are the famous passages in 
Amos (III. 6) : "Shall there be evil in a city 
and the Lord hath not done it" ; and in Isaiah 
(XIV. 7), "I form the light and create dark- 
ness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord 
do all these things." Darkness and death are as 
truly providential as light and life. And, finally, 
St. Paul seems to clearly recognize our doctrine 
in 1 Cor. VI. 18, where he says, "Every sin 
that a man doeth is without the body," that is, 
every sin is really committed by the soul through 
the will, apart from the body, the body being only 
the instrument, not the agent. As the poet Her- 
rick says, 

"The body sins not : 'tis the will 
That makes the action good or ill/' 

We hope the reader has now become fully con- 
vinced that revelation, reason, and religion are 
united in behalf of this theory of divine provi- 
dence which has so very close a connection with 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 93 

the life ecstatic. We hope he will conclude that 
his doubts and questionings have all been fairly 
answered, and that if at any points there still 
seems to be mystery that mystery is only the nec- 
essary accompaniment of such deep matters, and 
he need pay it no heed, but fearlessly accept the 
doctrine to his very great comfort. There is no 
other which will afford him so much support. 
This theory fully secures the freedom needful for 
personal accountability without interfering with 
the true prerogatives and powers of the Almighty, 
preserves the Creator from responsibility for sin 
without imperiling or shattering His control of 
the universe, makes a place for divine sovereignty 
and human sovereignty as well. It draws the 
dividing line where the immaterial and the ma- 
terial in man come together, making God sov- 
ereign in the realm of matter including the bodies 
of men and other animals, while man is sovereign 
in the realm of his own volitions. It makes all 
physical force in the last analysis simply and sole- 
ly God's, and makes sin reside in the will alone, 
which is beyond the reach of God's control by 
the conditions of its creation. Combining these 
tw r o thoughts we have a consistent and sufficient 
explanation of how the Creator can govern the 
world without disturbing the moral responsibility 
of His creatures. In this way we obtain a firm 
foundation for intelligent faith in God's promises 



94 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

without imperilling our conceptions of the per- 
fect holiness of His character. In this way we 
secure scope for the freedom of the created will 
without elevating either man or devil into a power 
able to defeat God's purposes in the world or 
mock at His authority. For as soon as men's de- 
vices take form in word or deed they become the 
common property of the providence of God who 
will have them develop and pass on to the con- 
templated end of the responsible deviser, or di- 
vert them to other ends, or restrain them in part 
or in whole, as may best subserve the purposes of 
His moral government. Hence when any agency 
good or bad reaches us it is an expression of 
God's will concerning us; something for us to 
learn, enjoy, do or suffer. 

We know of no other consistent workable the- 
ory. This one sets forth better than any other, 
we believe, the respective relation of God, Satan, 
and man to the existence of the sins and miseries 
that infest the world, marking out clearly the dif- 
ferent degrees of power they exercise. By mak- 
ing God great it gives the believing soul a sure 
ground of trust and peace ; by assuming and con- 
serving the freedom of the human will it preserves 
responsibility. We are saved from all fear or 
concern about wicked men or wicked angels. We 
are saved, too from trouble at what seem the 
blunders and mistakes of good men,, whether our 



EVERYTHING A GODSEND 95 

own or other people's. We feel sure that even in 
them there is a purpose and a meaning ; that there 
is a loving heart behind them, and a strong con- 
trolling hand upon them; they are of the "all 
things" that work together for our good, having 
uses of admonition, correcting our pride, and de- 
livering us from worse evils than those they 
bring. The pain which comes in punishment for 
our careless infraction of some wise law is dis- 
ciplinary and beneficent, and we can find cause 
for praising him who sends it. We shall embrace 
cordially that most wholesome and inspiring truth 
that "every man's life is a plan of God," and we 
shall eagerly give our strength to co-operating 
with the development of God's plan concerning 
us, rejoicing in the sacrifices and sufferings made 
necessary by so high and so worthy an end. Our 
trust will be no half-trust, a meaningless mock- 
ery, sure to fail when most needed, but a trust of 
the genuine thorough-going sort, out from which 
naturally, inevitably springs the calm and pleasant 
feeling that nothing can ever come to us which 
is not in harmony with that perfect will infinitely 
holy, wise and good ; a trust which will sweep our 
faces clean of even the vaguest anticipation of 
anything not to be desired. 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE. 



A LITTLE BIRD I AM. 



A little bird I am, 

Shut from the fields of air; 
And in my cage I sit and sing 

To Him who placed me there, — 
Well pleased a prisoner to be, 
Because, my God, it pleases Thee. 

Nought have I else to do: 

I sing the whole day long; 
And He whom most I love to please 

Doth listen to my song. 
He caught and bound my wandering wing, 
But still He bends to hear me sing. 

My cage confines me round; 

Abroad I cannot fly; 
But, though my wing is closely bound, 

My heart's at liberty. 
My prison walls cannot control 
The flight, the freedom of the soul. 

Oh, it is good to soar 

These bolts and bars above, 
To Him whose purpose I adore, 

Whose providence I love; 
And in Thy mighty will to "find 
The joy, the freedom, of the mind. 

Madame Guyon. 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE. 

Among" the means that multitudes have found 
very helpful in the cultivation of the joyful life 
are the "psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" 
that God has put it into the heart of gifted men 
and women to write. Whoever is skilled in the 
science of saintliness, and proficient in the art of 
godly living, knows how much benefit oftentimes 
comes from this source. A single verse, or even 
line, will frequently lift the soul out of incipient 
doubt and scatter clustering mists that would 
otherwise have gathered into depressing clouds. 
A hymn is a wing by which we soar above earthly 
cares and toils into a purer air and a clearer sun- 
shine. And when the hymn is married to a mel- 
ody that proves its fitting mate we have two 
wings with which to speed our flight heavenward. 
Lofty communion comes readily to him who ever 
and anon breaks forth into singing. There are 
heights which cannot so well be gained in any 
other way. The happy heart says, Let us praise, 
as naturally as the troubled heart says, Let us 
pray. And our happiness is increased and stimu- 
lated by the very process of giving it expression. 

LOFC. 



100 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Emotion grows as it gains utterance. So much 
so is this the case that it is even worth while 
sometimes to force the flow at first, if it be neces- 
sary, thus availing ourselves of the truth that 
songs on the lips tend to work their way down 
into the heart. What a rich treasure-house has 
the church of God in its hymnology! 

Into this general subject we must not further 
enter, but a book like the present would hardly 
be complete without one chapter of suitable ex- 
tracts from those poets and hymn-writers who 
have put into verse the thoughts and ideas which 
we are trying, in prose, to impress upon the 
reader. These verses are every w r ay fit for being 
committed to memory. They can and should be 
repeated very often, and said over and over, 
at odd moments, when travelling or lying wakeful 
at night, and made the theme of prolonged medi- 
tation. They are very concentrated, and so their 
meaning can be enlarged upon almost without 
limit, developed in other language, and applied 
to every variety of conditions or circumstances. 
They are pithy, sententious, strong, compact and 
beautiful, appealing to the esthetic faculties, as 
well as to the ethical, carrying a large freight of 
feeling in a small vehicle of words. He is wise, 
we think, who makes a collection of the lines that 
most please and help him, filling his memory with 
their melodious syllables, and strengthening his 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 101 

purpose by the power which they contain and 
convey. 

The subject of Providence, which has recently 
occupied us, has been very extensively dealt with 
by the poets, and an entire volume could easily be 
filled with their words about it. Well known are 
the grand hymns of William Cowper, "God moves 
in a mysterious way," of Martin Luther, "A 
mighty fortress is our God," and of Joseph Addi- 
son, "The Lord my pasture shall prepare." Many 
have put into flowing metres the wonderful 
Twenty-third Psalm. Many have essayed to give 
utterance to the confidence which one who fully 
believes reposes in the object of his steadfast and 
well-grounded faith. Few have done better at 
it than Charles Wesley. The following hymn, 
not so fine in poetic style as some that he wrote, 
deserves to be better known to the general Chris- 
tian public : 



"Away, my needless fears, 
And doubts no longer mine : 
A ray of heavenly light appears, 
A messenger divine. 



Thrice comfortable hope. 

That calms my troubled breast; 
My Father's hand prepares the cup, 

And what He wills is best. 



102 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

If what I wish is good, 
And suits the will divine, 

By earth and hell in vain withstood. 
I know it shall be mine. 



Still let them counsel take 

To frustrate His decree; 
They cannot keep a blessing back, 

By Heaven designed for me. 

Here then I doubt no more, 

But in His pleasure rest, 
Whose wisdom, love, and truth, and power, 

Engage to make me blest." 



What form of words could more fully express 
the doctrine which we have endeavored to set 
forth in the previous pages ? If there is a decree 
of God for my good that cannot be frustrated by 
any human counsel, that earth and hell combined 
cannot bring to naught, if the ample blessings 
which heaven has allotted me cannot be kept back 
by any sort of instrumentality, then indeed my 
fears are needless, my doubts an impertinence, 
and my untroubled breast may well lean upon His 
love in exceeding great comfort and perfect, per- 
petual peace. 

Very similar to the above, and of an equally 
positive faith, is a hymn, by the Rev. Henry 
Francis Lyte, who wrote also, "Abide with me, 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 103 

fast falls the evening tide," "Jesus, I my cross 
have taken," and many others very dear to the 
Christian church. Not so well known, but alto- 
gether worthy of a place in any smallest collec- 
tion of hymns calculated to voice and vitalize 
completest confidence in the Saviour, is the fol- 
lowing : 

"My spirit on Thy care, 

Blest Saviour, I recline; 
Thou wilt not leave me to despair, 
For Thou art Love divine. 

In Thee I place my trust, 

On Thee I calmly rest; 
I know Thee good, I know Thee just, 

And count Thy choice the best. 

Whate'er events betide. 

Thy will they all perform : 
Safe in Thy breast my head I hide, 

Nor fear the coming storm. 

Let good or ill befall, 

It must be good for me; 
Secure of having Thee in all, 

Of having all in Thee." 

No one more signally than Madame Guyon, by 
her great sufferings for conscience sake so di- 
vinely borne, as well as by her marked gifts and 
profound experience, has earned a right to be lis- 



104 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

tened to on this subject. We must deny our- 
selves the privilege of giving the whole of any 
of her numerous hymns. They are easy of ac- 
cess. Especially fine is one, written during her 
long years of severe imprisonment in the Bastile, 
beginning, "A little bird I am," a part of which 
we have put at the beginning of this chapter. 
Another, but little inferior, has for its first dou- 
ble stanza this : 

"My Lord, how full of sweet content, 
I pass my years of banishment. 
Where'er I dwell, I dwell with Thee, 
In Heaven, in earth, or on the sea. t 
To me remains nor place nor time; 
My country is in every clime; 
I can be calm and free from care 
On any shore, since God is there." 

Of like import are three other stanzas from 
other hymns by the same author, not very fa- 
miliar, which our readers will be glad to add to 
any collection which they may make of such 
stimulating utterances : 

"To me 'tis equal whether Love ordain 

My life or death, appoint me pain or ease; 
My soul perceives no real ill in pain, 
In ease or health no real good she sees." 

"Tis that which makes my -treasure, 
'Tis that which brings my gain: 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 105 

Converting woe to pleasure, 

And reaping joy from pain. 
O 'tis enough whate'er befall 
To know that God is all in all." 

"In vain they smite me. Men but do 
What God permits with different view. 
To outward sight they hold the rod, 
But faith proclaims it all of God." 



With similar clearness and boldness of testi- 
mony, to be as widely as possible imitated — Oh, 
that it might be universally adopted — speak out 
others who say, 

"All's alike to me so I 
In my Lord may live and die." 

"I ask no more in good or ill, 
But union with Thy holy will." 

"All my requests are lost in one, 
Father, Thy only will be done." 

"Whatsoe'er our lot may be, 

Calmly in this thought we'll rest. 
Could we see as Thou dost see, 
We should choose it as the best." 

"With patient course Thy path of duty run, 
God nothing does or suffers to be done, 
But Thou wouldst do the same if thou couldst see 
The end of all events as well as He." 



106 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Could anything be more wholesome, more pro- 
ductive of exaltation and exultation, than the 
absorption of such sentiments as these? When 
they have become the instinctive, axiomatic utter- 
ance of the soul in every contingency and emer- 
gency, not merely the final result after struggle, 
but the spontaneous expression of unforced feel- 
ing in the face of whatever so-called calamity 
or affliction it may please the Lord to send, then, 
indeed, one has good reason to believe that he has 
reached the condition of union with God where 
the purifying processes are practically complete; 
then he is prepared to shout victory all along the 
line; then he does not so much submit his pleas- 
ure to the will of God as find his pleasure in the 
will of God — a very different thing. It will have 
long since been manifest that we regard a cor- 
rect attitude toward the will of God as being the 
key to the situation, as the point to be watched 
with utmost care, the place to put the emphasis, 
the test of real progress. Feelings are secondary 
to volitions, and only important as they lead up 
to volitions or form a part of them. When we 
can say "Yes" to God with our whole heart and 
mind and strength, under all circumstances, we 
have arrived. When that which we render is not 
simply a cold obedience to the bidding of our 
King under the compulsion of a superior power, 
but a warm welcome to the wish of our best 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 107 

Friend, a welcome into which the whole soul is 
poured with adoring love and passionate, affec- 
tionate self-bestowment, then God and we have 
become one in a way that justifies and exempli- 
fies the startling words of Jesus — "Even as thou, 
Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also 
may be in us" (John XVII. 20) ; "I know mine 
own and mine own know me, even as the Father 
knoweth me, and I know the Father" (John 
X. 14). 

Something of all this we tried to express rhyth- 
mically in a hymn called "The Will Divine," 
printed in some of the religious papers a while 
ago. It seems fitting to insert it here as a legiti- 
mate portion of this chapter : 



Thy Will, O God, is joy to me, 

A gladsome thing ; 
For in it naught but love I see, 

Whate'er it bring. 

No bed of pain, no rack of woe— 

Thy Will is good; 
A glory wheresoe'er I go, 

My daily food. 

Within the circle of Thy Will 

All things abide; 
So I, exulting, find no ill 

Where Thou dost guide. 



108 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

In that resplendent Will of Thine 

I calmly rest: 
Triumphantly I make it mine, 
And count it best. 

To doubt and gloom and care and fear 

I yield no jot; 
Thy choice I choose, with soul sincere. 

Thrice happy lot ! 

In all the small events that fall 

From day to day. 
I mark Thy hand, I hear Thy call, 

And swift obey. 

I walk by faith, not sense or sight. 

Calm faith in Thee; 
My peace endures, my way is bright, 

My heart is free. 

Unfaltering trust, complete content. 

The days ensphere. 
Each meal becomes a sacrament, 

And heaven is here. 

Whoever studies this testimony will find that 
if he is to adopt it for his own he will have to 
separate himself fundamentally and finally from 
certain habits and opinions, certain modes of 
thought and speech which prevail with the vast 
majority of Christian people. They do not count 
God's will always best, gladsome, resplendent, 
a thing to glory in, except so far as it falls in 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 109 

with their desires and views, in which case evi- 
dently it is not the will itself that they adore. 
It is not with them, as it was with the Master, 
a "daily food" — "My meat is to do the will of 
Him that sent me" (John IV. 34) — their source 
of strength and happiness. It is often a "bed of 
pain" on which they lie because they cannot help 
it, with many inward, if not outward, groanings 
and scarcely suppressed complainings that it is 
very, very hard. There is but little triumph in 
their thought or word ; there is much "doubt and 
gloom and care and fear"; their peace does not 
always endure in the period of trial, their way 
is not always one of sunshine, nor their heart free 
from burden. They do not see God's hand in 
everything, however minute, nor feel that the cir- 
cle of the will that takes them in covers also what- 
ever exists, without exception, and that the strong 
pavilion in which they spend their days is a 
veritable piece of heaven, so perfect is their 
courage and content. Whoever can enter fully 
into the whole meaning of this hymn will be walk- 
ing very close to Christ, and will have little 
more to do than to watch against unconscious, 
tmdiscerned departures from its standard, and to 
see that whatever further light is given on any 
of its positions is promptly followed. 

There is an older hymn with substantially the 
same teaching, differently phrased and covering 



110 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

some points not touched in the briefer one just 
given, a hymn written by the gifted Christian 
poet, Frederick William Faber, more than half 
a century ago, and deservedly held dear ever since 
by a wide circle of devout hearts. This chapter 
would not be complete without the presence of 
this wonderfully beautiful, comprehensive and 
suggestive effusion of a muse whose inspiration 
has been everywhere recognized. 

I worship thee, sweet Will of God! 

And all Thy ways adore, 
And every day I live, I seem 

To love Thee more and more. 

Thou wert the end, the blessed rule 
Of our Saviour's toils and tears; 

Thou wert the passion of His heart 
Those three and thirty years. 

And He hath breathed into my soul 

A special love of Thee, 
A love to lose my will in His, 

And by that loss be free. 

I love to kiss each print where Thou 

Hast set Thine unseen feet; 
I cannot fear Thee, blessed Will! 

Thine empire is so sweet. 

When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to Thee. 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 111 

I know not what it is to doubt; 

My heart is ever gay; 
I run no risk, for come what will 

Thou always hast Thy way. 

I have no cares, O blessed Will! 

For all my care are Thine; 
I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou 

Hast made Thy triumphs mine. 

And when it seems no chance or change 

From grief can set me free, 
Hope finds its strength in helplessness, 

And gaily waits on Thee. 

Man's weakness waiting upon God 

Its end can never miss, 
For man on earth no work can do 

More angel-like than this. 

Ride on, ride on triumphantly, 

Thou glorious Will! ride on; 
Faith's pilgrim sons behind Thee take 

The road that Thou hast gone. 

•He always wins who sides with God, 

To him no chance is lost; 
God's will is sweetest to him when 

It triumphs at his cost. 

Ill that He blesses is our good, 

And unblest good is ill; 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 

If it be His sweet Will! 



112 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Comment on these burning words seems hardly 
called for, unless it be to say that there is a 
wealth of meaning in them which nothing but 
prolonged meditation can at all uncover. They 
strike a note so high and true that only the elect 
few can unhesitatingly sound it; they set forth 
a creed so uncompromising that the number of 
those who can unfalteringly write their names at 
the bottom of it is not, and perhaps never will be, 
large. But it is invaluable as a standard. Many 
who must confess their present inability to stand 
on its breezy, heaven-lit heights fully accept it 
as a privilege and duty to constantly strive toward 
it, and cherish the hope of one day reaching this 
elevation. It is not a small thing so to do, to 
prove/ to the utmost what is possible to us if we 
form a prefect partnership as to cares and tri- 
umphs with the Lord Almighty, to learn in the 
largest degree the lesson of absolute acquiescence, 
the sweetness of complete obedience, the secret 
of true freedom, the joy of full fidelity, the 
supreme gain of unselfish loss. Verily this is a 
very great thing. Surely these words contain 
one of the best, most felicitous descriptions ever 
written of the life hid with Christ in God, the 
life fair and fragrant in the rarest degree, the 
life that walks with a conquering tread, free 
from all fear whether of tongues or tempests, 
on fire with love, anchored in peace, possessing 



SHOUTINGS IN VERSE 113 

the golden gates of gladness, failure left forever 
behind, disappointment defeated and destroyed, 
paradise enjoyed. Let us all fix our steadfast 
enraptured gaze on this lofty ideal and press 
rapidly on with all our powers toward its com- 
pletest realization. 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES. 



RABIA 



Rabia, sick upon her bed 
By two saints was visited, 
Holy Malik, Hasan wise, 
Men of mark in Moslem eyes. 
Hassan said, "Whose prayer is pure, 
Will God's chastisements endure." 
Malik from a deeper sense 
Uttered his experience; 
"He who loves his Master's choice 
Will in chastisements rejoice." 
Rabia saw some selfish will 
In their maxims lingering still, 
And replied, "O men of grace, 
He who sees his Master's face 
Will not in his prayer recall 
That he is chastised at all." 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES. 

In our endeavors to establish an absolutely 
immovable foundation for the deep joy of the 
genuinely Christian heart, so that the man who 
thinks, as well as the man who feels, may fully 
share it, so that not only the simple-minded soul 
who reads nothing but his Bible, but also he of 
the schools and libraries, may equally rejoice 
in God, we have appealed to science and phil- 
osophy and reason, as well as to Scripture, citing 
a few representative names and texts which may 
stand for the many that might be quoted. It 
remains for us to call upon a goodly number of 
the most devout spirits of the church universal 
to add their testimony in corroboration of the 
truth on this all-important subject of divine 
providence. We find, as might have been ex- 
pected, that the men who have made Christ-like- 
ness, or a close walking with God, their special 
study and practice for a long time and with the 
greatest success, have usually accepted as the 
only consistent, workable doctrine of providence, 
or the Christian life, the main ideas which we 
have been trying to set forth, namely, that man's 



118 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

freedom is wholly internal, where alone his sin 
and responsibility abide, while God is sovereign 
over all the external acts and events that take 
place in consequence of human volitions. As 
soon as the execution of the determination is 
attempted the creature steps outside of his own 
independent and responsible sphere and enters 
the realm of God's providence where He assumes 
control. 

We say that this theory by which alone the 
dividing line between divine and human respon- 
sibility can be clearly drawn, has commended 
itself, for its symmetry and beauty, its simplicity 
and strength, to those profoundly religious spirits 
who have sought above all else for some place 
where perfect rest and perfect activity can be 
combined, some place where they could have all 
the unquestionable benefits of fatalism without 
the least touch of its benumbing, paralyzing evils. 
Such men have rejoiced over the discovery as 
those finding great spoil, and have not hesitated 
to declare it in various forms, with much reitera- 
tion. They have felt, as we, too, have done, that 
the very highest forms of devotion can scarcely 
flourish without being sustained by the feeling 
that the divine Friend is present and active in 
all that takes place, working continually for our 
good, guarding our every interest, guiding our 
every step, and revealing Himself to the 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 119 

watchful eye in every smallest occurrence of 
life. And, feeling this, they have become very 
strongly attached to a doctrine that so simply 
and securely provides for precisely this thing. 
Without further introduction, we proceed to give 
a small selection, all that our space seems to 
warrant, from the much that has been written 
on this theme by the best teachers and exempli- 
fiers of the spiritual life. 

Thomas a Kempis (13801471) in his Imita- 
tion of Christ, which ranks first among unin- 
spired volumes for diffusion, popularity, and use- 
fulness, says, "O Lord God, holy Father, be 
Thou blessed now and forever, for whatever 
Thou wiliest is done, and all that Thou wiliest is 
good." "The righteous should never be moved by 
whatever befalls him, knowing that it comes from 
the hand of God, and is to promote the important 
business of our redemption. Without God noth- 
ing is done upon the face of the earth." "Perfec- 
tion consists in offering up thyself with thy whole 
heart to the will of God; never seeking thine 
own will, either in small or great respects; but 
with an equal mind weighing all events in the 
balance of the sanctuary, and receiving both 
prosperity and adversity with continual thanks- 
giving." "Lord I will freely suffer for Thy sake 
whatever affliction Thou permittest to come upon 
me; I [will indifferently receive from Thee sweet 



120 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

and bitter, joy and sorrow, good and evil. For 
all that befalleth me I will thank the love that 
prompts the gift, and reverence the hand that 
confers it." "No evil is permitted to befall thee 
but what may be made productive of a much 
greater good." "The truly patient man, what- 
ever be the adversity that befalls him, however 
often it is renewed or by whomsoever it is ad- 
ministered, receives all with thankfulness as from 
the) hand of God, and esteems it great gain." 

Francis of Sales, Bishop of Geneva, as lovable 
and nearly perfect a man as ever lived, issued in 
1608 his Introduction to a Devout Life, a 
manual of devotion from which vast multitudes 
have drawn sweetest nourishment. In it we find 
these words, "Everything which occurs in the 
universe, except sin, happens by the will of God; 
no one can prevent its accomplishment, and it is 
known by the effect it produces. When events 
occur we judge unhesitatingly that God has willed 
and regulated them." "Let us bless and thank 
God on all occasions, saying, I do not wish for 
anything, O my God; I do not even desire to 
know what may befall me ; the power of willing 
and choosing belongs to Thee; I reserve to my- 
self only that of blessing Thee for whatever 
Thou hast ordained. Souls thus united to God 
have reached the highest degree of perfection 
which can be attained in this life." "We 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 121 

practice the highest perfection of love when we 
not only receive afflictions with patience and 
resignation, but even cherish and delight in them 
on account of the will of God from which they 
proceed/' "For you there is nothing else in the 
world but God and yourself. Often reflect that 
all we do derives its true value from the con- 
formity which we have to the will of God ; so 
that in eating and drinking if I do it because it 
is the will of God that I do it I am more pleasing 
to God than if I suffered death without that in- 
tention." "Take care to make yourself daily 
more pure in heart ; this purity consists in weigh- 
ing everything in the balance of the sanctuary, 
which is nothing else than the will of God." 

Alphonsus Rodriguez, author of one of the 
very best works on Christian Perfection which 
has ever seen the light, and which was first pub- 
lished at Seville in 1614, and soon translated 
into all the languages of Europe, said, "Observe 
that in every sin we commit there are two things" 
The one is the motion or exterior act, the other 
the irregularity of the will by which we trans- 
gress what the commandments of God prescribe. 
God is the cause and author of the first; man 
only is the cause and author of the second." 
"There can nothing happen in this world but by 
the order and will cf God. Sin excepted, all 
other things, as sufferings, pains and afflictions, 



122 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

happen by the order and will of God. This is a 
truth not to be called in question; for, though 
all these things proceed from second causes, it is 
certain that there is nothing done throughout the 
universe but by the command and will of one 
sovereign Master who orders and governs all/' 
"Those who have attained a perfect conformity 
to the divine will and who place their own con- 
tentment in that of God never suffer themselves 
to be disquieted at the changes and accidents 
of this life. Their will is so fully subjected to 
that of God that the very assurance they have 
that all things come as sent by Him, and that 
His holy will is accomplished in whatever ad- 
versity happens to them, makes them, by pre- 
ferring His will to their own, look upon all their 
tribulations and sufferings as so many joys, and 
all their griefs and sorrows as so much sweet- 
ness and consolation. Hence it is that nothing 
can trouble them; for as trouble can come only 
from crosses, misfortunes and affronts, and as 
these, through respect for the hand which sends 
them are received by them as so many favors, it 
follows that there is nothing which can change or 
diminish the peace and tranquillity of their soul. 
Each day of their life is a day of jubilee and 
exultation. Having attained a perfect conform- 
ity to the divine will, they meet everywhere 
sources of content and satisfaction/' "It is cer- 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 123 

tain if you never desire anything but what God 
desires you will always attain the object of your 
desires, because God's holy will can never fail 
of being entirely performed. How happy we 
when we covet nothing but what God pleases. 
And how happy, not only because our own will is 
accomplished, but because we see the will of God, 
whom we love, accomplished in us and in all 
things." 

The seraphic Fenelon (1651-1715), who was 
not only a saint but also a scholar and a genius, 
and whose thirst for perfection has probably 
never been surpassed, was a voluminous writer 
and an incomparable teacher. Among many 
other things bearing on our topic, he wrote, "No 
matter what cross may overwhelm the true child 
of God he wills everything that happens, and 
would not have anything removed which his 
Father appoints; the more he loves God, the 
more is he filled with content; and the most 
stringent perfection, far from being a burden, 
only renders his yoke the lighter." "True virtue 
and pure love reside in the will alone. The 
important question is, not how much you enjoy 
religion, but whether you will whatever God 
wills." "Nothing can happen contrary to the 
will of God, and we find in His good pleasure an 
inexhaustible source of peace and consolation. 
The interior life is the beginning of the blessed 



124 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

peace of the saints who eternally cry, Amen, 
Amen. We adore, we praise, we bless God in 
everything; we see Him incessantly, and in all 
things His paternal hand is the sole object of our 
contemplation. There are no longer any evils ; 
for even the most terrible that can come upon 
us work together for our good. Can the suffer- 
ing that God designs to purify us and make us 
worthy of Himself be called an evil?" "The 
peace of the soul consists in an absolute resigna- 
tion to the will of God. The pain we suffer from 
so many occurrences arises from the fact that 
we are not entirely abandoned to God in every- 
thing that happens." 

The Theologica Germanica, one of Luther's 
main helpers in learning the true way, and a 
favorite handbook of devotion in Germany down 
to the present day, a truly golden treatise, has 
this, "In truth, nothing is contrary to God ; no 
creature nor creature's work, nor anything that 
we can name nor think of, is contrary to God 
or displeasing to Him, but only disobedience and 
the disobedient man. In shorty all that is is well- 
pleasing and good in God's eyes, saving only 
the disobedient man." "The man who is truly 
godlike complaineth of nothing, but of sin only. 
And sin is simply to desire or will anything 
otherwise than the one perfect good and the 
one eternal will, or to wish to have a will of one's 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 125 

own. Sin is to will, desire, or love otherwise 
than as God doth. Things do not thus will, 
desire, or love; therefore things are not evil; 
all things are good." 

Another book of almost equal fame and value 
is The Spiritual Combat, written by Lorenzo 
Scupoli (1530-1610) and spread abroad in fifty 
editions, in many languages, while the author yet 
lived. Many hundred editions have perpetuated 
its usefulness since. It was the master of 
Francis of Sales, and has been of multitudes 
more. We find there these words, "Everything 
which befalls us comes from God for our good, 
and we may profit by it. And though some of 
these (such as our own failings or those of 
others) cannot be said to be of God who willeth 
not sin, yet are they from Him, in that He 
permits them, and though able to hinder them 
hinders them not." "In all things make it a 
general rule to keep thy wishes so far removed 
from every other object that they may aim simply 
and solely at its true and only end, that is, the 
will of God. For in this way w r ill they be well 
ordered and righteous; and thou, in any con- 
trary event whatsoever, wilt be not only calm but 
contented ; for, as nothing can happen without 
the supreme will, thou, by willing the same, 
wilt come at all times both to will and to have 
all that happens, and all that Thou desirest." 



126 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

"Consider that all these disquieting things, and 
such like evils, are not real evils, though out- 
wardly they seem so, nor can they rob us of any 
real good, but are all ordered or permitted by 
God for righteous ends." 

Turning to some among the many moderns 
whose example, as well as words, have been so 
powerful in molding the sentiment and opinion 
of great churches, we delight to contemplate 
John Wesley, who was cheerful under all cir- 
cumstances, never low-spirited, never disquieted. 
Often quoted have been his well known words, 
"I dare no more fret than curse and swear." 
"By the grace of God, I never fret, I repine at 
nothing, I am discontented with nothing. I see 
God sitting upon His throne and ruling all things 
well. Ten thousand cares of various kinds are 
no more weight or burden to my mind than ten 
thousand hairs are to my head.'"' "We know 
that all things are ordered by unerring wisdom 
and are given us exactly at the right time and in 
due number, weight and measure/' "If we see 
God in all things and do all for Him, then all 
things are easy." 

Wesley's close companion and designated suc- 
cessor, John Fletcher, was one of those who had 
fully learned how to rejoice evermore and in 
everything give thanks, beholding God's hand in 
all events, without the least exception. He said, 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 127 

"All is well, for He that doeth all things well 
rules and overrules all. This world has become 
to me a world of love. I kiss the rod which 
smites me. I adore the Providence which lays 
me aside." Among his favorite rules were these: 
"Receive afflictions as the best guides to perfec- 
tion." "Rejoice always in the will of God." 
"Remember always the presence of God." "Do 
not surrender thyself to any joy." "Renounce 
thyself in all that can hinder thy union with God." 
He died as he lived, and the triumphant words 
from his deathbed were in no way different from 
those which most naturally expressed his feelings 
during his entire career. They were these: 
"God is love. It fills my heart every moment. 
Shout, shout aloud. I want a gust of praise to 
go to the ends of the earth." 

Coming to this side of the Atlantic, and to a 
period somewhat nearer our own time, we may 
well take Edward Payson (1783-1827) as a 
model of modern sanctity. We cull from among 
his utterances the following, which cannot be too 
often pondered, "O, what a blessed thing it is 
to lose one's will ! Since I have lost my will I 
have found happiness. There can be no such 
thing as disappointment to me, for I have no 
desires but that God's will may be accomplished." 
"God has been cutting off one source of en- 
joyment after another, till I find that I can do 



128 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

without them all, and yet enjoy more happiness 
than ever in my life before." "Christians might 
avoid much trouble and inconvenience if they 
would only believe what they profess, that God 
is able to make them happy without anything 
else. They imagine that if such a dear friend 
were to die, or such and such blessings were 
removed, they should be miserable ; whereas God 
can make them a thousand times happier without 
them. To mention my own case : God has been 
depriving me of one blessing after another; but 
as every one was removed He has come in and 
filled up its place ; and now when I am a cripple 
and not able to move, I am happier than ever I 
was in my life before, or ever expected to be; 
and if I had believed this twenty years ago I 
might have been spared much anxiety." "We 
shall never be happy until we acquiesce with 
perfect cheerfulness in all His decisions, and 
follow wherever He leads without a murmur." 
"I have suffered twenty times — yes, to speak 
within bounds — twenty times as much as I could 
in being burned at the stake, while my joy in 
God has so abounded as to render my sufferings 
not only tolerable but welcome. God is literally 
now my all in all. While He is present with me 
no event can diminish my happiness; and were 
the whole world at my feet trying to minister 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 129 

to my comfort they could not add one drop to 
my cup." 

Of a different class in outward things, but 
of the same sort inwardly, was Thomas Jonathan 
Jackson, a distinguished General in the Con- 
federate army. His faith and trust led him to 
feel under all circumstances that nothing could 
happen to him but what was sent in wisdom and 
love by his heavenly Father. No text was more 
frequently on his lips than that which has been 
such a favorite with all God's chosen ones : "We 
know that all things work together for good to 
them that love God." He so ruled his life that 
he never inadvertently fell into the use of the 
common expressions always upon most people's 
lips, involving the wish that some event were 
different from what it w r as. To do so would, 
in his opinion, have been to arraign Providence. 
"Don't you wish it would stop raining?" might 
be the careless remark made to him after a weelc 
of wet weather. His smiling reply w^ould invari- 
ably be, "Yes, if the Maker of the weather thinks 
it best." Every act of his life was religious. He 
spiritualized everything; he prayed without ceas- 
ing; he lived entirely and unreservedly to God's 
glory. No combination of earthly ills could mar 
his happiness. After his fatal wound at Chan- 
cellorsville, he said to a friend, "You see me 
severely wounded, but not depressed, not un- 



130 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

happy. I believe it has been done according to 
God's holy will, and I acquiesce entirely in it. 
You may think it strange, but you never saw me 
more perfectly contented than I am to-day, for 
I am sure that my Heavenly Father designs this 
affliction for my good. I am perfectly satisfied 
that either in this life or in that which is to come 
I shall discover that which is now regarded as 
a calamity to be a blessing. I can wait until God 
in His own time shall make known to me the 
object He has in afflicting me. But why should I 
not rather rejoice in it as a blessing, and not look 
upon it as a calamity at all? If it were in my 
power to replace my arm I would not dare to do 
it unless I could know it was the .will of my 
Father." 

General Charles George Gordon, of England 
and China and the Soudan, was a twin in spirit 
with General Jackson. He had an unwavering 
trust, an absolute faith in God. His language 
was, "Either I must believe He does all things 
in mercy and love, or I must disbelieve in His 
existence ; there is no half-way in this matter for 
me." "It is quite impossible that any one can 
be happy or even tranquil, unless he accepts the 
faith that God rules every little item in our daily 
lives, permitting the evil and turning it to our 
good." "Whatsoever happens is best; God 
directs all things, great and small, in infinite wis- 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 131 

dom." "The whole of religion consists in look- 
ing to God as the true Ruler, and above the 
agents He uses ; the flesh will always look to the 
agents." "I cannot wish things were different 
from what they are, for if I do so then I wish my 
will, not His, to be done." "In this life the posi- 
tion we occupy is as nothing; each is in his right 
place." "When you bow to the will of God, you 
die to this world." 

To complete our round dozen of witnesses — 
six from the medieval age, and six from modern 
times — we summon Prof. Thomas C. Upham 
(1799-1872) whose Interior Life, Life of Faith, 
Divine Union, Life of Madame Adoma, Life of 
Madame Guyon and Fenelon, together with other 
similar precious volumes, have fed great multi- 
tudes. From his teeming pages we quote just 
a little, "Everything which takes place indicates, 
all things considered, the mind of God in that 
particular thing." "The man who lives in con- 
formity with providence necessarily lives in con- 
formity with God. It is only when we are in 
this position that we may be said to walk with 
God; and walking with God is union with God. 
To be in harmony with God's providence we must 
be in harmony with everything, not excepting 
the material world. There is no grass, no flower, 
no tree, no insect, no creeping thing, no singing 
bird, nothing which does not bring God with it, 



132 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

and in such a manner that the thing which we 
behold becomes a clear and bright revelation of 
that which is invisible." "The event, painful as 
it is, and criminal as it is under some circum- 
stances, is nevertheless a manifestation of God; 
and not of a God absent, but of a God present. 
And happy is the man that can receive this. To 
be out of harmony with these things, acts, and 
events which God in His providence has seen 
fit to array around us — that is to say, not to meet 
them in a humble, believing and thankful spirit — 
is to turn from God." "This important principle 
raises us at once above all subordinate creatures, 
and places us in the most intimate connection 
with God Himself. It makes the occurrences of 
every moment, to an important extent, a mani- 
festation of God's will, and consequently, in 
every such occurrence it makes God Himself es- 
sentially present to us, brings God and our souls 
together." "A will perfectly coincident with the 
will of God is at the same time the natural 
result and the highest evidence of a sanctified 
heart. When the will in its personal or self- 
interested operation is entirely prostrated, so that 
we can say with the Saviour, 'Lo I come to do 
thy will,' then the wall of separation is taken 
away, and the soul may be said, through the open 
entrance to find a passage, as it were, into God 
Himself, and to become one with Him in a mys- 



A CLUSTER OF WITNESSES 133 

terious but holy and glorious union." "The man 
who is disturbed and impatient when events fall 
out differently from what he expected and antici- 
pated, is not in the enjoyment of true spiritual 
freedom. In accordance with the idea of God's 
perfect sovereignty, the man of a religiously free 
spirit regards all events which take place, sin only 
excepted, as an expression under the existing 
circumstances, of the will of God. And such is his 
unity with the divine will that there is an imme- 
diate acquiescence in the event, whatever may 
be its nature, and however afflicting in its per- 
sonal bearings. His mind has acquired, as it 
were, a divine flexibility, in virtue of which it 
accommodates itself with surprising ease and 
readiness to all the developments of Providence, 
whether prosperous or adverse." 

Surely there is no need that we call on the 
many others who might easily be summoned. 
Some may think that even these testimonies are 
in a way superfluous, in that they only repeat 
with a variety of language what has been already 
said. Truly, this is so. Nevertheless, there is 
an added assurance which comes to us concern- 
ing any great doctrine when it is plainly seen that 
many minds of no small calibre in many centuries, 
after the most profound reflection and the most 
prolonged waiting upon God, have reached the 
same results, and have verified them as spiritually 



134 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

profitable in their daily experience through long 
years of trial. The truth is thus seen to be no 
mere eccentricity or quiddity of some bold specu- 
lator or seeker after originality and novelty, but 
the well-considered, amply confirmed conclusion 
of great numbers who have sought with a single 
eye to hear God speak and do His bidding. Surely 
it is safe to follow such guides. What has helped 
them so much will be likely to help us. The una- 
nimity of their utterance is a powerful argu- 
ment. They were men of independent minds, 
living in different countries and centuries and 
churches, and yet they all speak the same thing. 
Why should we hesitate to accept their conjoint 
declaration, their complete agreement, as to how 
the highest and deepest, the most peaceful and joy- 
ful, of lives can be lived ? There would seem no 
room to question the blessedness of it all. The 
only thing remaining is to join this band of the 
truly noble, resolved to be one of their number, 
since the way is certainly plain, and what God 
did for them he can do for us. 



A PRINCE WITH GOD. 



TRUST AND REST 



Fret not, poof soul* while doubt and fear 

Disturb thy breast, 
The pitying angels who can see 
How vain thy wild regrets must be, 

Say, Trust and Rest. 

Plan not, nor scheme, — but calmly wait; 

His choice is best. 
While blind and erring is thy sight, 
His wisdom sees and judges right, 

So Trust and Rest. 

Strive not, nor struggle ; thy poor might 

Can never wrest 
The meanest thing to serve thy will; 
All power is His alone: Be still, 

And Trust and Rest. 

Desire not: self-love is strong 

Within thy breast; 
And yet He loves thee better still, 
So let Him do His loving Will, 

And Trust and Rest. 

What dost Thou fear? His wisdom reigns 

Supreme confessed; 
His power is infinite; His love 
Thy deepest, fondest dreams above; 

So Trust and Rest. 

Adelaide A. Proctor. 



A PRINCE WITH GOD. 

In the endeavor to set forth fully the life 
ecstatic I have made, in the previous chapter, a 
number of quotations from prominent saints in 
both ancient and comparatively modern times. I 
cite, in the present chapter, the example of one, 
intimately known to me for fully forty years, 
who has just passed away, feeling sure that it 
will help those who read this volume to compre- 
hend mentally and apprehend practically the sort 
of character for which the book stands. We are 
so constituted that we are more deeply impressed 
by examples than by precepts. The concrete 
affects us more strongly than the abstract. We 
ask, Can these counsels that look so beautiful 
on paper be actualized in daily life, have they 
been so actualized? We are not satisfied until 
we see it, or are told authentically that it has been 
seen. We want the ideal brought down to the 
real. If the grace of God has been sufficient in 
others to enable them to walk in perpetual joy, 
to exult and skip and leap and bound for gladness 
in Jesus, to give thanks for all things, and rejoice 
evermore, as well as pray without ceasing, then 



138 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

we attack the height ourselves with far more con- 
fidence and hopefulness. 

It is for this reason that I prepared and sent 
out last year a volume entitled, The Saintly 
Calling, devoted entirely to this aspect of the sub- 
ject. I gave compact sketches of nineteen men 
and women well worthy to be termed saints 
because they showed so plainly the character- 
istics, men and women to consort with whom, 
even through the cold pages of print, would 
arouse desires after the eminent goodness which 
they possessed, and would furnish no little in- 
struction as to how the heights were reached. 
They were people who breathed the atmosphere 
of heaven, who had illuminated faces, whose 
sense of God was extremely vivid, whose devo- 
tion to the will divine was passionate, who keenly 
realized the presence of the infinite One, dealing 
directly with Him in all the events that met them, 
and glowing with love to Jesus. They were 
"God-intoxicated" men and women, with a mar- 
velous sweetness and brightness about them, with 
unclouded faith, unfaltering trust, unruffled 
cheerfulness, and a sublime absorption in the 
highest ideals of duty. They beheld God's hand 
in everything, they triumphed in trials, had un- 
interrupted fellowship with the Father and the 
Son, suffered no occurrences to pass unimproved, 
possessed inward recollection at all times, made 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 139 

personal religion their primary concern, were 
happy in poverty and pain, praising God for 
afflictions. They lived in habitual communion 
with the unseen world, their one business to 
please the Lord and to effect an ever increasing 
union with Christ, dead to the world, to nature, 
to self, and so remaining perpetually in the land 
of Beulah, "Peace" and "Victory" their habitual 
experience and expression. They saw nothing 
but the unbounded goodness of their Heavenly 
Father, even when their dearest hopes were 
blasted ; their lives were a bliss to themselves and 
a blessing to others ; they were entranced with 
"the music of the Will," clinging to no plans, 
running over with kindness, steeped in love, 
choosing always the higher path, with a deep en- 
thusiasm for goodness and for the closest pos- 
sible walk w r ith God. They basked in the sun- 
shine, and poured around them the light of a 
most gracious smile, defying any combination of 
earthly ills to rob them of their gladness. They 
spiritualized every thing, lived unreservedly for 
God's glory, were always contented with their 
lot, and more than contented. They belonged 
to the highest royality of earth, the seraphic. 
They were on fire with love to Jesus and their 
fellow T men, carrying the flame and flavor of 
their religion with them wherever they went, con- 
sumed with the zeal of God's work, overflowing 



140 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

with Hallelujahs. What more likely than that 
the contemplation of such examples should arouse 
within us dormant longings, and inspire us with 
determinations after the highest holiness. 

Since putting out the book above referred to 
I have sketched another of these characters, not 
so distinguished in the world of affairs, but fully 
ranking with them, I believe, in the eyes of the 
Lord. Every one who knew him would bear 
willing testimony that the life ecstatic was his 
daily portion; and so this brief biography finds 
fitting place in these pages. I esteemed him a 
prince with God, but he would scarcely have 
seemed a prince to the casual observer. Such 
a one, indeed, would perhaps, ignorantly or 
superciliously, have set him down as rather below 
than above the level of the ordinary Methodist 
minister. For he had no pulpit and no official 
position. After four years' occupancy of obscure 
appointments, owing to failure of health, he took, 
in 1846, a superannuated relation to the New 
England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and retained it till his decease in 1902. 
So he had but little standing in the eyes of men, 
very little of this world's goods, no earthly recog- 
nition in ecclesiastical or social circles. But he 
was, in the largest sense of the term, a prince 
with God, truly great in the eyes of the Lord, 
for he walked in the very closest intimacy with 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 141 

Him for more than sixty years, and He used him 
as a means of widespread blessing. He was very 
highly appreciated by such as were conversant 
with his character and competent to estimate it. 

Here are a few testimonies from those who 
knew him best : "Association with him has been 
the greatest blessing of my life." "No life was 
so separated from the earthly as his. In his 
presence I always felt the Christ-life, the God 
manifest in the flesh." "He lived for Jesus only, 
all those years ; he was eminently one of the few 
real saints who live out all they teach." "No 
one could say too much in his praise ; he was as 
near like the Master as any human being could 
be; he was ever courteous and had a most win- 
ning way; he never antagonized any one, but 
loved them into believing." "What a sweet, 
strong, loving walk it all w r as, every day and 
every way, set apart in the Divine will in all 
things for more than a half century; he lived in 
the atmosphere of victory, never doubting the 
success of what he attempted in His name; h£ 
lived to bless and be a blessing wherever the 
Lord placed him." "Life is richer and heaven 
is nearer and dearer to me because I came to 
know him." 

His special work was helping people up the 
heights of Christian perfection, and guiding them 
in the maturer developments of divine grace. He 



142 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

could not aid all, for many could not understand 
him. He was to them an Apocrypha, something 
concealed ; for he was quite a mystic in his mental 
mood and fonn of expression. John Tauler and 
other such writers were among his small collec- 
tion of books, and he would have been warmly 
welcomed among that choice band of exalted 
spirits called "the Friends of God," who, in the 
fourteenth century, filled Western Germany with 
their holy influence. But those who by tempera- 
ment or experience were qualified to receive his 
teachings obtained very much benefit from inter- 
course with him. Oftentimes a single, simple 
word, spoken in the fullness of the Spirit and 
with the peculiar unction which characterized 
him, would be sufficient to break the fetters of 
Satan and bring about deliverance or large illu- 
mination. 

To a sister who was at one time in heaviness 
he said: "Are you glad?" "For what?" "That 
He is your life." And immediately the living 
waters began to flow. Of one who desired to 
enter into a deeper union with God he asked: 
"Do you want the Lord to look upon you as 
wholly at His disposal?" "I do." "And do you 
say, All that I have is His?" "Yes." "Well, 
then, He says the same to you : All that / have 
is thine." And the Holy Spirit speedily wit- 
nessed to the betrothal of this soul to the 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 143 

Heavenly Bridegroom. To another who longed 
to know the keeping power of Christ, he said: 
"Can you not trust Jesus to save you this 
moment ?" "Yes, I could for one moment." "But 
can you not trust Him right along moment by 
moment?" "I think I could if I could always 
remain in this chair." "Then consider yourself 
always in that chair; that is, remain in the same 
attitude of spirit before the Lord." Her testi- 
mony ever after was : "I have always remained 
in the chair, and find Jesus a present Saviour." 
To one who said: "I shall never be satisfied 
until I awake in His likeness," he replied; "In 
whose likeness are you awaking day by day?" 
Some one remarked to him : "We shall be be- 
yond the clouds by and by." His reply was: 
"We are above them now." Another said: "I 
have been walking in a very narrow way; there 
has only been room enough for me and Jesus." 
His quick answer was : "Oh, that was too much 
room; if there had been room enough only for 
Jesus, you would have had no trouble." 

On nothing did he lay more stress than on the 
privilege of the believer to be one with Christ, 
and his right on that account to adopt and apply 
to himself a large part of the language used by 
the Saviour with reference to Himself and His 
relations to the Father. The oneness of the 
branch with the Vine, so that all the strength 



144 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

of the Vine, so far as the branch needed it or 
could contain it, and so long as the connection 
was unimpeded, passed into the branch, was very 
real to him, and far from being a mere figure of 
speech. St. Paul's declaration that we are temples 
of the Holy Ghost he most fully accepted, and 
was fond of finding allusions to the fact in un- 
expected places, bringing out this truth with 
power to the abundant edification of those whom 
he addressed. With beaming face and out- 
stretched hands he would look around on the 
circle of God's children met for spiritual inter- 
course and rapturously exclaim : "How amiable 
are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts !" And 
again he would say, with special emphasis : "The 
Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep 
silence before Him." That which was simply of 
earth, the fleshly, the carnal, he very effectually 
and habitually silenced, that the Lord's voice 
might be clearly heard. Perhaps no word was 
oftener on his lips than : "Be still, and know that 
I am God." He found, I think, many meanings 
in it, as he did in so many other passages of 
Scripture which the average reader passes over 
with scant attention, noting only what is on the 
surface. From the height of his intense God- 
consciousness he spoke out to his lower earthly 
nature, bidding it be quiet and listen and learn. 
"When I awake," he would say, "I am still with 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 145 

Thee/' And it was this inward stillness which 
enabled him to hear so many heavenly voices. 
His constant prayer was : "Thy will be done in 
earth" — this earthly temple — "as it is in heaven." 
His entrance on the higher Christian path was 
somewhat peculiar, and deserves to be narrated. 
While in his twentieth year, and after carrying 
for a long time a burden of sin, he quietly and 
deliberately said, while listening to a sermon: 
"I will take Jesus to be my Saviour." Imme- 
diately his burden was gone, God's love was shed 
abroad in his heart, and in less than three weeks 
he became a member of the Baptist Church in 
which he was converted. This was in April, 
1834. He came to Boston not long after, from 
Portsmouth, his native place, as salesman in a 
dry goods store on Hanover Street. During the 
summer of 1839 a copy of President Mahan's 
"Christian Perfection" fell into his hands, and a 
careful study of that excellent book convinced 
him that there were high privileges before him 
which he had not yet reached. Having this in- 
creased light, he straightway obeyed it, and at 
once set out, with fullest purpose, to bring his 
whole being into oneness with God's will. He 
soon found that God had come into his life to 
abide, and he was filled with the Holy Ghost and 
with great peace. "Thenceforward," he says, 
"nothing disturbed my inward calm, though I 



146 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

had been troubled by a hasty temper. It became 
my meat and drink to do His will as soon as 
known." 

Feeling a call to preach, and the Baptist Church 
not encouraging his new views on sanctification, 
he was drawn to enter the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, which he did at Marblehead, in 1841, 
under the ministry of Rev. James Mudge, a 
kindred spirit, with whom he studied theology, 
and who gave him a license to preach. During 
the second year of his active ministry, which only 
lasted from 1842 to 1846, his attention was called 
to this word, in Jer. 15: 19: "If thou take forth 
the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my 
mouth." He had thought this fully done before, 
but now he became still more sensitive Godward, 
and began to detect forms of selfishness not pre- 
viously discerned. This stumbled him at first, 
but soon seeing clearly that a deeper consecra- 
tion was necessary, he answered quickly: "Yes, 
Lord, all this, and more, if it be Thy will." It 
proved to be, he says, the lesson of his life. 
Whenever afterward anything came up that in- 
volved or threatened conflict, or indicated that 
there was a further work to be accomplished, 
he at once yielded himself to Cod for the fuller 
installments of the life of Christ. Thus he be- 
came quickly conscious when any lack of harmony 
with the divine will presented itself, and, imme- 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 147 

diately taking the further step thus pointed out, 
went triumphantly forward with great strides. 
He passed very early beyond the point where 
there needed to be any "struggling and wrestling 
to win it," and came among the "more than con- 
querors" who have no special occasion to shout 
victory because there has been no conflict. 

The work of grace was thus with him very 
manifestly both instantaneous and gradual — 
gradual as the new light kept coming, to which 
he instantaneously responded. That which with 
some teachers w r as the summit — the mere living 
without conscious or wilful sin — was with him 
only the foundation on which he solidly built. 
He took people where they were left by these 
teachers, and led them on to much loftier heights. 
He said to them : "You need not seek a fresh 
baptism of the Holy Spirit in consequence of 
these disturbances into which you have been 
thrown by the reappearance of the self-life, for 
the Comforter comes to abide ; when the self-life 
at any point manifests itself, die to it in your will 
on the instant, and the Christ-life will stand re- 
vealed." He often quoted "The Lord delighteth 
in the death of His saints" ; and, "Blessed are the 
dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from 
their labors and their works do follow them." 
He fully believed that when every form of self 
is yielded, and we are fully at the Lord's dis- 



148 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

posal, He is made unto us wisdom, so that our 
doubts and perplexities disappear; we hear His 
voice and know not the voice of strangers. "Let 
the Christ life come forth/' he would say, "that 
which is within you, that which alone you should 
acknowledge as having possession; it is not 
necessary always to have a conscious realization 
of the fruits of the Spirit, but if they are there, 
or since they are there, they will show them- 
selves when called for." The shower which 
refreshes the earth may not be visible after a 
little, for it has sunk into the soil, but it will 
duly appear in the ripening fruits. We draw the 
water from the faucets as it is needed, and are 
well content to have it awaiting us in quiet rather 
than embarrassing us in obstrusive superabund- 
ance. 

He was childlike in a marked degree, abound- 
ing in pleasantry, always cheerful, sunny, and 
happy. He deemed that God "hath given us 
richly all things to enjoy," and meant our natural 
appetites and powers to be inlets of gratification. 
His exhortation was : "Children of the Heavenly 
King, as we journey let us sing/' "All my 
springs are in Thee," was his testimony; and he 
liked to say, as he entered a company, exhilara- 
tion in every movement and stamped visibly on 
the countenance: "My cup runneth over." No 
one doubted it. His abiding home was in the 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 149 

thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. His very 
presence was a stimulus and a benediction. No 
one could see him without the consciousness that 
he walked with God and lived from "a great 
depth of being/' He knew all the paths of Beulah 
Land. To a dear friend w r ho inquired if he 
could tell just where he was in the Christian life, 
he replied: "I only know that I am in a place 
of broad rivers and streams, wherein goes no 
galley with oars ; where there is no need for 
painful effort; for souls that have passed into 
God find no latitude nor longitude, but are in 
infinite spaces and must be continually led in 
ways that they know not." He pronounced no 
shibboleths, w r as not tenacious of any terms, or 
anxious to stretch others on some Procrustean 
bed ; he reached no finality in his experience — his 
course was ever onward. "He must increase, 
but I must decrease/' he said. In the fullest 
sense he lived the life of faith. He claimed noth- 
ing for himself, and was greatly surprised that 
any should ever suppose that he did. "I thought 
they would understand that I was speaking of 
my Beloved." He had no quarrel with any. 
Bishop Gilbert Haven, in whose Maiden home he 
was a frequent and welcome visitor, the special 
friend and counselor of mother and sister, said: 
'Brother Hall is one of the few truly good men 
with a deep experience who does not undervalue 



150 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

the experience of others. He is all right, only 
he is twenty years ahead of his time." 

He held great numbers of meetings which w r ere 
centers of wonderful blessing to large multitudes. 
They were unconventional in character. Nothing 
was to him an interruption, and if a message was 
given to or by another, he was ever ready to hold 
his peace. He waited on the Spirit, and was 
careful to speak only in the Spirit. He counted 
those with whom he assembled "mutual helpers 
in the grace of God/' and would smilingly say: 
"We have met on 'Change ; we have not to urge 
Jesus to come, but only to acknowledge His pres- 
ence, and if all are obedient we will have a profit- 
able meeting." He was a pastor at large, doing 
the Lord's work and speaking the Lord's words 
wherever he went. 

He said : "I have two little words ever in use, 
Yea and Nay ; toward God in all things my yea 
is yea, and toward anything opposite to Him my 
nay is nay." This life long habit of saying yes to 
God frequently found expression in an inclination 
of the head, with the words : "The Christian 
should always be polite, ever bowing to God's 
providence, to whatever is allowed to express 
His will." A dear brother, the janitor of a 
neighboring church, said : "I will take that nod 
of yours, Brother Hall," and soon found the 
trials natural to his position, changed to loving 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 151 

service. He had a peculiarly hearty "Amen/' 
which much impressed itself upon his friends, 
and it was uttered very strongly with reference 
to any and every point of God's will, so much so 
that some, when about to pray for the removal 
of trials, threatened or actual, have stopped as 
though they heard that "Amen," and changed 
their prayer into: "Even so, Father, If so it 
seemeth good in Thy sight." 

Among his fruitful words may be quoted the 
following: "Be a barometer Godward, sensitive 
only for Him, and the vaporous appearance of 
self that may sometimes enter your horizon will 
never gather into a cloud." "Be beheaded, be- 
loved, and then be headed with Christ, your 
living Head." "Temptations are your spiritual 
gymnasium." "Believing is be leaving and be 
living — living the new life after leaving the old." 
"The secret of living in Him and walking in His 
power is always to count with God ; when tempta- 
tions and trials come, count them all joy." "We 
must ever be the latest edition of the truths of 
God's Word." "I have made His will my 
pleasure, and He has made my wants His care." 
"To a real Christian there is always a divine 
order, a fullness of time, in all things." "It is 
not enough that you find your home in God ; He 
wants to find His home in you." "The heart 
that is satisfied with the will of God dwells in 



152 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

heaven.'' "Everything that is allowed to come 
into our lives is remedial, to the end that we 
may have increased conformity to the likeness of 
Christ." "Cease from thoughts that disturb the 
peace, or increase fears about results." 'The fear 
of evil invites evil." "It is our privilege to say 
at all times : Thou, O Lord, shalt glorify Thy- 
self in and with me where Thy providence has 
placed me.' " "We being His, and His providence 
holding us in the fire, lie down in it in His still- 
ness. Recognize only Him in your fire ; in His 
stillness let the storm pass over your mind, leav- 
ing His peace and contentment ; He will properly 
appear in your extremity." 

He was able, in a good degree, to appropriate 
divine strength for the body, claiming Christ as 
a healer, without fanaticism, but in a way that 
was very effective and anticipatory of some mod- 
ern truths in the New Thought and in Christian 
Science which have not perhaps received all the 
attention from the orthodox that they deserve. 
"There may be an eternal gain in long life," he 
said, "in overcoming in the midst of infirmity, 
so be in no haste to leave the body. Time 
enough for the other life by and by — that will 
keep. I do not care to go where I am not yet 
wanted." When told by a physician that it was 
a marvel he was alive,, as apparently he had 
exhausted his natural strength, he said: "Then 



A PRINCE WITH GOD 153 

I will take the Lord's strength and run along," 
which he did for some years, proving the promise : 
"With long life will I satisfy him and show him 
My salvation." He was well on in his 88th 
year when he closed his eyes on earth. 

His last conscious words were in response to 
the question: "How do you do, this morning?" 
He characteristically replied : "I am doing the 
will of my Lord.'' He always did it. And the 
fitting epitaph on his tombstone in Woodlawn 
Cemetery, placed there by his widow, who had 
and has a very large measure of the same spirit, 
is: 

"He lived what he preached — oneness with the 
Divine will." 

Though absent from us in the body, he is 
present with us still in spirit, present with the 
Lord, in glorious union with whom he spent his 
days. He goes on living in the lives of the great 
multitude whom he assisted to know Christ better, 
and who can never forget his wise, genial, tender 
counsels. Such make little stir among men ; they 
are not called great here, but their true greatness 
is realized in heaven, and their reward is sure. 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS. 



WAITING 



Serene, I fold my hands and wait, 
Nor care for wind or tide or sea; 

I rave no more 'gainst time or fate, 
For lo ! my own shall come to me. 

I stay my haste, I make delays, 
For what avails this eager pace? 

I stand amid the eternal ways, 
And what is mine shall know my face. 

Asleep, awake, by night, by day, 
The friends I seek are seeking me; 

No wind can drive my bark astray, 
Nor change the tide of destiny. 

What matter if I stand alone? 

I wait with joy the coming years; 
My heart shall reap where it has sown 

And garner up its fruit of tears. 

The waters know their own, and draw 
The brook that springs in yonder height; 

So flows the good with equal law 
Unto the soul of pure delight. 

The stars come nightly to the skies, 

The tidal wave unto the sea, 
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high, 

Can keep my own away from me. 

John Burroughs. 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS. 

Bishop Janes, in a letter to his daughter which 
may be found in his biography, related the follow- 
ing suggestive and instructive incident : 

"I remember the first year I was in the min- 
istry, I visited an aged and poor colored woman. 
I found her very happy, notwithstanding her 
many infirmities. I asked her, 'Are you always 
happy?' She replied, 'Yes, always happy.' 'But 
are you never unhappy ?'' She replied with great 
earnestness, 'No, I won't be unhappy/ I pre- 
sume I have thought of that visit a thousand 
times. I am persuaded the will has much to do 
with our happiness." 

This persuasion of the good bishop's I fully 
believe to be entirely reasonable, and worthy of 
all acceptation. Not that our will can directly 
control our feelings. It would be the utmost 
folly to expect our emotions to go and come at 
call. But indirectly they may be regulated with 
comparative ease. We can command our thoughts. 
We can influence our minds to such and such 
trains of reflection. We can turn resolutely 
away from the consideration of disagreeable 



158 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

topics, and refuse to dwell on the unpleasant 
aspects of an inevitable situation. All this is 
certainly in our power. And it is by these means 
that we can largely determine how much or how 
little happiness we will have. 

For example, the poor woman above referred 
to might easily have made herself very wretched 
by brooding over the hardships of her lot, by 
looking continually at the many who were in 
more prosperous outward circumstances than she, 
by reckoning up her discomforts, by minimizing 
her mercies and magnifying her merits. But she 
evidently took the opposite course. She put 
a low estimate on her deserts, which is only 
another way of saying that she was truly humble. 
She considered that one who had done so little 
for God, and was so full of faults and failures 
as she, had no sort of right to complain if he 
gave her far less than she actually received. She 
no doubt reflected how much worse it might justly 
have been with her, and that multitudes quite 
as worthy were much worse off. She seized upon 
all the little common mercies of her daily life, such 
as are usually overlooked, and made much of 
them, praising God for His constant remembrance 
of her. And she probably had gained by close 
communion with her Father in heaven that rare 
wisdom which perceives the hidden blessing in 
what seems baneful, the real good in apparent ill. 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 159 

Under such conditions of course she was happy. 
How could it be otherwise? 

May it not be expected of all true Christians 
that they should say with this woman, "I won't 
be unhappy?'' Is there not always a bright side 
to be looked at, a smooth handle to be grasped? 
It is a saying of Epictetus, the old Stoic phil- 
osopher, "Everything has two handles — one by 
which it may be borne; another by which it 
cannot." The suggestion seems to be that there 
are various cups on the table of life or various 
burdens in our pathway, and whether they are 
attended with gaiety or gloom depends wholly on 
the way we take them. If we take the day by the 
handle of a frown the clouds will lower and the 
rain will be likely to pour till we are drenched 
and disagreeable. But the stormiest day taken 
with a smile will turn into sunshine and all around 
us be pleasant. If we take our work by the 
handle of reluctance it will tend to become in- 
tolerable; while the same work grasped cheer- 
fully by the handle of willingness grows easy. 
Our pleasure handled as a means of petty self- 
indulgence will yield no lasting good ; but gener- 
ously shared with others and found in the way 
of the Lord's appointment or sought for His 
glory it carries abiding bliss. And so with 
every part of our multifold existence. 

Should we not live above the mists and 



160 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

miasmas of all low lands? Should we not fly 
at such an elevation that the arrows shot at us 
whether by Satan or men will fall short and fail 
to pierce? There is a pretty story which this 
expression brings to mind. It is to the effect that 
one time when a flock of pigeons were flying over, 
John, the gardener, being importuned by his 
employer's niece to get his gun and shoot some, 
simply replied, "Couldn't do it, my little Miss, 
couldn't do it; couldn't bring 'em down nohow. 
Them pigeons and your uncle are a good deal 
alike. They've got a secret — he and the pigeons 
— that's just alike." The girl was puzzled, and 
at first provoked, not understanding what was 
meant. But in the afternoon when she went into 
the hayfield she found out. A man was doing 
the haying on shares, and about sunset it was 
discovered that he was not a man to be trusted, 
having driven off the largest and best loads for 
himself. 

Uncle David, on being summoned, quietly asked, 
"What does all this mean ?" The man, caught at 
his trick, flew* into a violent rage and exclaimed, 
"It means that I won't work for nothing." And 
then He proceeded to pour out a flood of abusive 
and insulting language, Uncle David meanwhile 
receiving it as calm and serene as the blue sky 
above his head. "Doing right," he said to the 
man, "is worth more to you than all the hay in 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 161 

the field. If you cheat me I shall lose but a little 
hay, but you will lose everything that makes 
the man." 

And while with other such words of gentle- 
ness and reason he showed the man his mistake, 
John the gardener came up close to the little girl 
and whispered, "Your uncle David flies high, 
and if a dozen like that miserable old fellow 
should stand and fire at him all day they couldn't 
bring him down. I did not fire at them pigeons 
this morning, for I knew I couldn't hit 'em, 
they were flying so high. And if that foolish 
man had known as much about your uncle as I 
did about the pigeons, he wouldn't have begun 
his firing. The pigeons and your Uncle David 
have the same secret — they both fly high." It is 
indeed a very blessed secret to live out of 
the range of everybody's gun, so near the sky 
as to be above the firing, never hit, unmoved 
by the vexations and troubles of daily life, meet- 
ing all trials little or large with quietness and 
peace undisturbed. It is a great thing to fly 
high. 

Among the sayings of Arminius, the eminent 
theologian of Holland, are these words, well 
worthy of adoption, "I should be foolish were I to 
concede to any one so much of right in me as 
that he should be able to disturb me as often as 
he has a mind." Yet this foolishness is very 



162 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

common. Most people put their peace at the 
mercy of almost any one who chooses to break it 
up. How manifest a mark of inferiority and 
slavery is this ! How fatal to assured happiness ! 
We are the children of a King. And it is surely 
the Father's will that His children should be 
essentially independent of circumstances, that 
they should be "more than conquerors" in what- 
ever place He puts them. It is their privilege to 
"rise o'er sin and fear and care," and have all 
these things securely under their feet, in other 
words to be always happy. And privileges are 
duties. 

Many people are not happy because they per- 
sist in taking offense at God. They are stumbled 
by His dealings. They demand explanations, and 
find none to satisfy them. They do not get on 
well with Him. They do not understand Him, 
and have not faith enough in Him to go quietly 
on their way without trying much to understand. 
So they become uneasy, discontented and miser- 
able. What a pity! Bad as it is to become 
offended with men^ it is much worse and every 
way far more disastrous to become offended with 
God, and to refuse to be pleasant toward Him, 
until He has cleared up the mystery or has treated 
us more to our liking. Many are in this position. 
They feel with Jonah .that they do well to be 
angry. They do not want to be reconciled or to 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 163 

submit their wills and confess their folly. But it 
is a great mistake. It certainly does not pay. 

Let us be happy. We can if we will. It is 
a matter of will in two ways. It depends on our 
getting rid of our own old self-will and accepting 
God's will in its stead. And in order to effect 
this, we must put forth strenuously and continu- 
ously that rightful, proper power of will with 
w T hich the Creator has endowed us, and which 
constitutes the chief element in our moral re- 
sponsibility. 

A recent devotional book, very excellent on 
the whole, casts much scorn on the idea that 
there is any virtue or religion in feeling happy, 
or that happiness is any gauge by which to test 
our spiritual condition. In doing so it assumes 
that happiness and righteousness are opposites, 
that the debauchee and voluptuary are happy, but 
not the strenuous fighter against evil. 

We protest against this position. We deem 
it a flagrant abuse of a noble word. There is, 
perhaps, a grain of reason about it in that there 
should be always with us that strain of heroism 
that does not care to be coddled, does not per- 
petually seek soft places, delights in danger, or 
at least despises it, if it be in the way of duty. 
But no quarter should be given to the thought 
that real happiness is to be found anywhere ex- 
cept with the good. True happiness is surely 



164 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

something higher than mere sensual pleasure or 
sensuous enjoyment. It has moral quality. It 
is serene, rational, abiding. The full, unimpeded 
use of our powers in unselfish service yields hap- 
piness of the truest kind. A rational moral being 
healthfully organized cannot be really happy 
while misusing himself or his opportunities in 
any way. Happiness is far more nearly allied to 
joy and gladness and bliss than it is to merely 
animal comfort or transient pleasure or the grati- 
fication of physical appetite. This is the common 
meaning of the word as employed by good 
writers. To degrade it, as the author above 
mentioned does, seems to us very objectionable. 
That sin brings happiness ought not for a moment 
to be granted. 

The Scripture writers treat the word properly, 
and they have fixed its meaning for us. They 
say, "Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he," 
"He that keepeth the law, happy is he," "Happy 
is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help," 
"Happy is he that hath mercy on the poor," 
"Happy is the man whom God correcteth," 
"Happy is the man that feareth always," "If ye 
suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye," "If 
ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do 
them." And Christ pronounces supremely happy, 
the pure in heart, the gentle, the merciful, the 
pure in spirit, and those persecuted for His sake. 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 165 

We cannot afford to spoil these declarations by 
admitting that any lower or contrary kind of 
conduct brings happiness. Xor is it well for us 
to lose sight of the fact that, in view of such 
texts as these, the possession of happiness fur- 
nishes a very important test of our religious 
condition. Happiness becomes a duty because 
it is the necessary result of doing certain things 
that are positively commanded. If we are not 
happy, that is. if we are full of anxiety and com- 
plaint, if we are melancholy, gloomy, distressed, 
worried, discontented, bitter, when such ample 
provision has been made by our heavenly Father 
to drive away these feelings, it is a just reproach 
upon us. We are manifestly to blame for our 
lack of happiness when it comes, as it usually 
does, from deficiency of trust in God. That He 
meant His children to be happy, that He is doing 
His best all the time to bring about that result, 
and that it will be brought about provided we 
co-operate with Him to this end, will hardly be 
doubted. 

Why then is not our possession of joy in 
Jesus a fair and suitable test of our spiritual con- 
dition, particularly of our faith? If we look into 
the matter closely, shall we not discover here 
the real cause for our dumps, although we like 
to ascribe them to something more creditable? 
Had we a perfect faith, could we be otherwise 



166 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

than perfectly happy? Have we any business to 
indulge in grief to such an extent that our happi- 
ness is destroyed? Even if, in a certain sense 
and for a time, "sorrowful/' can we not be "al- 
ways rejoicing?" Are not our hymns right 
which say that it is not in grief to harm us while 
God's love is left to us, that prisons would prove 
palaces if Jesus would dwell with us there, and 
that even though "every fond ambition" has 
perished, our condition is rich with God and 
heaven still our own? 

It may indeed be admitted that there is a dif- 
ference between the joy of the feelings and the 
joy of the will, that mere surface emotion is no 
proper criterion of our religious state, that we 
are not to make paramount the having what is 
frequently called "a good time." But on the 
other hand, it is surely very reprehensible to even 
intimate that the most genuine happiness is not 
to be found in the doing and bearing of all God's 
will. A matter of language, it will be said, a 
question of terms. Very true. But it is by no 
means unimportant that we have our language 
correct, Scriptural, rational. Great issues may 
turn on small parts of speech. Grave doctrines 
are determined and personal character is pro- 
foundly affected by our choice of adjectives and 
nouns. When people flippantly say, with refer- 
ence to the highest state of grace, "Call it what 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 167 

you will, it malces no difference to me," we are 
not impressed with their wisdom. For to call it 
something which throws out of gear a hundred 
Scripture texts, and puts a stigma on the 
larger part of the church of God, and leads in- 
evitably to confusion, disappointment, and spirit- 
ual loss, is manifestly bad. Only when things 
are called by their right names will they take 
their rightful places and the best results will be 
reached. 

Happiness, goodness and greatness have very 
close connections. Indeed they are inseparably 
bound up in one bundle. Each may be tested 
by the other. No one who is not habitually 
happy has a right to be called either good or 
great. Nor can any one who is not_ emphati- 
cally good be accounted either truly great or 
really happy. The elements of essential great- 
ness are in him who, under all the changing cir- 
cumstances of this mortal life, maintains un- 
diminished felicity, and in spite of the thousand 
forms of subtle temptations holds an untouched 
integrity. This being the case, they are mani- 
festly at fault who affect to despise happiness, 
and who deem it a comparatively unimportant 
matter whether one has perpetual joy or not. It 
is proved to be a fundamental affair, testifying 
to our mental and spiritual calibre more strongly 
perhaps than any other one thing. Let not the 



168 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

gloomy, the discontented, the peevish, the melan- 
choly put forward any claims to goodness or 
greatness. They are convicted of failure and 
fault, of weakness and wickedness, they are 
clearly lacking in faith and hope and love. In 
pointing out, then, some paths to happiness we 
are not intermeddling with a small matter, but 
with one of the very first importance. 

Happiness is conditioned on the welcoming 
of God's will. He who heartily accepts that 
blessed will of the Heavenly Father which comes 
to us each moment through events has mastered 
the secret of a perfectly happy life. There is 
no joy in this world like that which springs from 
doing the divine pleasure. This secret of bliss 
seems to be hidden from all but a few ; yet the joy 
is open to any who will take the requisite steps. 
This was the joy of Jesus, and He stands ready 
to share it with all who will follow Him fully. 
John G. Whittier, in a somewhat recently pub- 
lished letter, after referring to the uncomfortable- 
ness of notoriety and other drawbacks which his 
wide reputation brought, adds this significant and 
wholesome word: "If I ever feel like envying 
any one it is not the world-famous author, but 
some serene, devout soul who has made the life 
of Christ his own, and whose will is the divine 
will." Such an one is indeed blessed, and has a 
deep happiness which no amount of earthly glory 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 169 

can confer. But envy is not called for, since the 
prize is within the reach of all — of all at least 
who begin the task in season and pursue it with 
intense desire. 

Happiness is secured by diminishing one's de- 
sires and demands. This is far more important 
than adding to our possessions. Carlyle strikingly 
expressed this truth by saying: "The fraction of 
life can be increased in value not so much by in- 
creasing your numerator as by lessening your 
denominator. Nay, unless my algebra deceives 
me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity. 
Make thy claim of wages a zero, then : thou hast 
the world under thy feet. It is only with renun- 
ciation that life, properly speaking, can be said 
to begin. We are not to add to the number of 
parts taken or grasped at, which the numerator 
represents, but lessen the number of particulars 
which appear to us essential to constitute a 
proper whole. If God is to us enough, and our 
desires apart from Him, the great Unity, are 
zero, then infinite bliss is ours." It is only 
a mathematical way of expressing the doctrine 
that full surrender is the prelude of full salva- 
tion, and that the death of self must precede 
possession of the true life. 

Happiness depends very much on opinion. It 
is not the things themselves that trouble us half 
so much as it is our thought about the things. 



170 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

By changing the latter, which is in our own 
power, we render ourselves independent of the 
former. Lord Bacon, who did so much to add 
to the stock of wisdom in the world, rarely said 
a better thing than the following: "There is 
this difference between happiness and wisdom — 
he that thinks himself the happiest man is really 
so : but he that thinks himself the wisest is gener- 
ally the greatest fool." In other words, modesty 
and humility are invariable accompaniments of 
true wisdom, while happiness resides in the opin- 
ion. He is happy who believes every thing that 
happens to him is best, because coming from the 
hand of a loving Father. 

Happiness is a mosaic made up of many little 
gems. That life, however humble and inconspic- 
uous, which is filled from end to end with little 
words for Jesus, little acts of kindness, little 
deeds that bless, is splendidly successful and 
celestially beautiful. He who makes it his one 
business to do good, who seizes promptly the 
small opportunities for usefulness that are con- 
stantly recurring, who keeps on steadily day by 
day storing up treasure in heaven, has mastered 
the secret of true happiness and lasting wealth. 
He is a center of holy influence, and a perpetual 
diffuser of sunshine. He will have a great reward. 
The poet Wordsworth well speaks of "that best 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 171 

portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, 
unremembered acts of kindness and of love." 

Happiness is intimately linked with industry 
and sincerity. To produce a happy life, it has been 
said, there must be great effort from great 
motives. Great success, it should be noted, is 
not set down as essential. The results we wish 
may or may not come. If our aim is high, our 
intentions pure, and we conscientiously do our 
best nothing can deprive us of a good measure 
of happiness ; while wasted powers or low aims, 
or laziness and selfishness, are wholly incom- 
patible with bliss. 

Happy are they that give themselves away, for 
they shall be accounted beyond price. He who 
sells himself for so much, who works for wages, 
who makes bargains even in what he calls his 
benevolences, is sure to be dissatisfied; he will 
feel that he has been fooled, that the price for 
which he has sold himself and his benefaction is 
not adequate. True blessedness, lasting satisfac- 
tion, comes only to those who put off from them 
all self-seeking and self-interest, and join with 
the genuine heroes, the real monarchs of life, 
who scorn the methods of barter and give them- 
selves with royal munificence to every worthy 
object. 

Happy are they who are content with a little; 
for they shall have great wealth. Contentment 



172 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

with godliness — and no other kind is real — 
furnishes wonderful gain. He whose desires over- 
pass his acquirements, or whose expenditures ex- 
ceed his receipts, is poor, no matter how large 
those expenditures or acquirements may be. He 
is rich who has as much as he wants, even if that 
be very little. The meek and humble "inherit 
the earth/' which cannot be said of any monarch 
or millionaire. 

Happy are they who make soft replies; for 
they shall break the hearts of their enemies. 
He who kicks against nothing hurts himself. 
When a man finds that the one he has been abus- 
ing is not only not perturbed, but is even moved 
to beneficence and compassion, he feels very small 
indeed. The contrast is humiliating, and is likely 
to crush. "To take no notice of an injury is to 
be even with our enemy; to forgive it is to be 
above him." Such a one scores three victories 
at once — he conquers himself, his foe, and the 
devil. And if the foe is not turned straightway 
into a friend, he will at least be so ashamed as 
not to invite a repetition of the treatment. 

Happy are they who always speak the truth; 
for they shall be called the bravest of the brave. 
A liar is in every case a coward. To say that 
"all men are liars," was no doubt somewhat 
hasty in David; but he was not far out of the 
way if those be counted liars who at some time 



SOME HAPPINESS SECRETS 173 

or other, in some small particulars, deviate know- 
ingly from the exact statement of fact. Lying 
means distrust of God, as well as fear of man. 
He who is full of courage and full of faith will 
have nothing to do with a lie, or with whatever 
looks like one. He despises it, and hates it. 

Happy are they who hate iniquity; for they 
have broken the power of temptation. He who 
deliberates is lost. To parley with the foe is 
the next step to surrendering. Only they that 
are aggressive in antagonism to evil are safe. 
To carry the war into the enemy's country is 
the best way to protect our own borders. The 
gospel of hate is a counterpart to the gospel of 
love, and the one is imperfect without the other. 
Intensity is essential to a successful Christian life. 

Happy are they who love the unlovely; for 
they shall find nothing too hard to do. Where 
the love of complacency is out of the question, 
the love of benevolence and compassion comes in. 
The disciple is not required to be above his Lord. 
Jesus did not approve of the Pharisees ; He even 
"looked round about upon them with anger." 
But He pitied them, and died for them; "and 
greater love hath no man than this/' nor need 
he have. 

Happy are they who become nothing; for to 
them shall be given all. It is absolutely the only 
way to get all. The number of those in any 



174 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

country who discover this secret, and perfectly 
attain the state, could probably be counted on the 
fingers. It is certainly very, very small. Noth- 
ing means much ; it includes everything. 

It will surely be well with him who heeds these 
hints and undertakes in good earnest to master 
these secrets. Happy people are very much in 
demand. The supply is always too small. What 
a pity that our churches do not furnish a larger 
number. It surely is not wicked to be glad. To 
be glum is not a sacred duty. There is no sin in 
assurance, no presumption in being certain that 
we are saved, no impropriety in joy, no holiness 
in discontent. In other days doubts and fears 
were deemed virtues ; saints were sad on purpose 
and from principle. But this is now very gener- 
ally seen to have been a mistake. The Bible has 
no precept which reads, "Groan in the Lord al- 
ways, and again I say, groan. " Quite the con- 
trary. It commands hallelujahs. Let us have 
more of them. 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY. 



A PERFECT TRUST 



Oh! for the peace of a perfect trust, 

My loving God, in Thee; 
Unwavering faith, that never doubts 

Thou choosest best for me. 

Best, though my plans be all upset; 

Best, though the way be rough; 
Best, though my earthly store be scant; 

In Thee I have enough. 

Best, though my health and strength be gone, 

Though weary days be mine, 
Shut out from much that others have; 

Not my will, Lord, but Thine! 

And even though disappointments come, 

They too are best for me, 
To wean me from this changing world, 

And lead me nearer Thee. 

Oh ! for the peace of a perfect trust 

That looks away from all ; 
That sees Thy hand in everything, 

In great events or small; 

That hears Thy voice — a Father's voice — 

Directing for the best: — 
Oh! for the peace of a perfect trust, 

A heart with Thee at. rest! 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY. 

The sunshine of God's presence, the hallowed 
light of His love, is the true abiding place of the 
soul. To tarry even for a time anywhere else 
is loss, and leanness, and lack of health. Here 
alone is fullest happiness and strength. "The 
Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be 
gracious unto thee/' was the central portion of 
Israel's ancient benediction. And one of David's 
favorite prayers — it should certainly be ours — 
was, "Make thy face to shine upon thy servant." 

"The Lord God is a sun." That beneficent 
work which the glowing luminary of heaven 
performs for the natural world — vitalizing, ani- 
mating, warming, coloring, cheering, strength- 
ening — '"the Sun of righteousness" does in the 
spiritual realm. Fairer than the summer, sweeter 
than the song of birds, more beautiful than the 
flowers, more glorious than that flood of life 
and light which betokens the presence of the 
bright king of the earthly day, is the presence 
of Him who brings life to the soul. This well 
know they who can say with Paul, "For God who 
commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath 



178 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

shined in our hearts/' Such shining in, on and 
around the happy heart is a perpetual source of 
joy and peace unutterable. 

Perpetual ? Can it be ? May the soul bask in 
this delightful sunshine all the while, and bid 
farewell to gloom and darkness, cloud and storm ? 
Is there a Beulah land where "shines undimmed 
one blissful day," and may we inhabit that de- 
lightful country, close on the borders of paradise, 
within view of the celestial city? Yes. 

"A land of corn and wine and oil, 
Favored with God's peculiar smile, 

With every blessing blest; 

There dwells the Lord our righteousness, 

And keeps His own in perfect peace, 

And everlasting rest," 

has been discovered, conquered and possessed by 
the faithful few who have gone up out of the 
wilderness, leaning on the arm of their Beloved 
and trusting only in His might. They have 
proved and know that "the path of the just is as 
the shining light, that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day." They have tested the 
truth of Isaiah's declaration, "Thy sun shall no 
more go down ; neither shall thy moon withdraw 
itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting 
light, and the days of thy mourning shall be 
ended." 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY 179 

These are descriptions not of heaven above, 
but of the heaven begun below in the breast of 
him who dares to believe God. What says Fa- 
ber, the pre-eminent poet of the deepest spiritual 
life? 

"If our love were but more simple, 

We should take Him at His word, 
And our lives would be all sunshine, 
In the sweetness of the Lord." 

"All sunshine?" Yes. There is such a thing 
as cloudless communion with God; no barrier 
of sin interposed to cast a shadow on the soul. 
There is a close companionship with Jesus which 
"makes life with bliss replete." There is a fel- 
lowship so dear that no foes or woes can make 
the heart afraid or disturb the serenity of its rest. 
The "path illumined by His smile grows brighter 
day by day," and they who run in it are not 
weary, they who walk in it are not faint. The 
summer lasts all the year, because He whose 
presence disperses all gloom and whose voice 
is sweeter than any music is always nigh to 
banish the night. 

"Their souls are ever bright as noon, 
And calm as summer evenings be/' 

As to the means for gaining this land of bliss 



180 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

and brightness, the poet above quoted intimates 
that they are a simple love and a more child- 
like trust. They could not perhaps be better 
expressed. Yet any and all expressions are pain- 
fully lame and inadequate, alike in describing 
the country and in pointing out the way to 
reach it. 

God is love. And the more love for all crea- 
tures we can store away in our hearts the more 
of His presence will be secured to us. Anything 
within us contrary to love both indicates His 
absence and produces it. Hence we must set 
it as our primary and never ceasing task to in- 
crease our stock of love and to guard against 
anything which would injure or diminish it. 
The same is true of trust. Trustfulness, with 
which hopefulness is so closely allied, in pro- 
portion to its supreme sway in the soul, assures 
us of sunshine. Doubt and fear and care dis- 
appear at its approach. Whatever legitimately 
strengthens our trust in God should be closely 
cherished. Prompt and hearty obedience to all 
His commands lies at the root. This is a fun- 
damental requisite, for nothing so surely hinders 
trust as any disobedience or failure to comply 
heartily and promptly with every requirement 
of the Lord. And nothing is so sure and ac- 
curate a measure of love as this same complete 
performance of all precepts. Of great help also 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY 181 

is everything that increases our knowledge of 
God, our apprehension of His perfect wisdom, 
power and affection for us, as well as our ac- 
quaintance with our own great weakness and utter 
need. For the more we know God the more we 
shall love and trust Him. And the more we 
know ourselves the less will be our love and trust 
in that direction. 

It is by these means that God brings us into the 
perfect and perpetual sunshine. And it often hap- 
pens that when we are first fully introduced to it 
we dot not manage to stay very long, on account 
of our ignorance of the laws of the land. But as 
we learn them more thoroughly we become estab- 
lished in our possession and it becomes our set- 
tled abiding place. 

It should perhaps be added to prevent misun- 
derstanding, that this sunshine of God's presence 
is quite compatible with such gentle showers as 
are needful for growth, and with winds of keen- 
ness and searching power that test the strength of 
the pilgrim who toils against them. The sun 
shines through the rain forming a bow of beauty, 
the token of God's everlasting covenant of mercy 
with His people. And the winds, and other obsta- 
cles in the way, do but brace the system, supply- 
ing fuller, sounder health. 



182 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

"My Saviour, Thee possessing, 

I have the joy, the balm, 
The healing and the blessing, 
The sunshine and the psalm." 

It is really amazing what a hold this thought, 
that sunshine is the true, normal aspect of the 
Christian's path, has taken on the minds of our 
song writers. Probably not less than a dozen of 
our popular hymns, most frequently sung in 
prayer meetings, have as their theme and basis 
this idea. Few pieces are oftener started, or ren- 
dered with heartier enjoyment, than 

"There's sunshine in my soul to-day, 

More glorious and bright 
Than glows in any earthly sky, 
For Jesus is my light." 

"Oh, there's sunshine, blessed sunshine, 

While the peaceful, happy moments roll, 
iWhen Jesus shows His smiling face, 
There is sunshine in my soul." 

How can it be otherwise? No darkness or 
gloom can withstand the impact of His presence. 
No storm can resist His "Peace, be still." "Where 
Jesus is, 'tis heaven," and it would be utterly in- 
congruous to imagine aught but brightness there. 
Well does the hymn go on to speak of music and 
gladness and springtime, "the dove of peace," and 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY 183 

"the flowers of grace/' inseparably associated with 
the time "when the Lord is near." The same 
thought appears in the exceedingly familiar 
hymn, "Trust and Obey," where we read — 

"Not a shadow can rise, 
Not a cloud in the skies, 

But His smile quickly drives it away; 
Not a doubt nor a fear, 
Not a sigh nor a tear 

Can abide while we trust and obey/' 

The beauty of this is that it puts so compactly 
and truthfully the cause and effect, the condition 
and the consequence ; for "while we do His good 
will," walking with the Lord in the light of His 
Word, a glory, indeed, is shed upon the way, our 
burdens are borne, our sorrows are shared and 
practically destroyed, our toil is richly repaid, 
while in fellowship sweet we sit at His feet or 
walk by His side in the way. Obedience is easy in 
the strength that cometh from trusting God, and 
trusting is easy when the obstacle that disobedi- 
ence presents is taken out of the path. Another 
of these hymns is called "Heavenly Sunlight," 
and has for its chorus this ; 

"Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight; 

Flooding my soul with glory divine; 
Hallelujah, I am rejoicing, 

Singing His praises, Jesus is mine." 



184 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

Not much of elevated poetry, it may be said, 
in these rollicking rhymes ; but they surely serve a 
worthy purpose if they can convey into the heart 
of the singer — as they are well calculated to do, 
being matched with stirring, bounding melody — 
something of the ecstasy which throbs in their 
glowing syllables. "Walking in sunlight all of my 
journey," the song says, "in the bright sunlight, 
ever rejoicing, singing His praises." The very re- 
peating of the words helps to keep before the 
mind the blessed fact that such walking, so rarely 
seen, is to be counted among our possibilities and 
privileges. It is easy to make fun of these jingles 
and call them childish, but we think they have a 
place, and we find in them an aid not to be de- 
spised, even in the following : 

"On Sunday I am happy, on Monday full of joy, 

On Tuesday I have peace within which nothing can 

destroy, 
On Wednesday and on Thursday I'm walking in the 

light; 
On Friday 'tis a heaven below, and Saturday's always 

bright." 

People who can sing, or say, this from the 
heart, meaning every word, are fully saved every 
day in the week, and every week in the year. 
They sit in God's banqueting house, and His ban- 
ner over them is love. Another of this class of 



SUNSHINE ALL THE WAY 185 

songs, which celebrates "this wonderful salvation 
and His redeeming grace, the comfort of His 
presence, the shining of His face/' has a chorus 
which runs as follows : 

''There is sunlight, sunlight, beaming bright and clear, 
In the sweetness of His service day by day; 

There is sunlight, sunlight, with my Saviour near, 
There is bright and blessed sunlight all the way." 

Shall not they who feel this "shout a glad ho- 
sanna for every victory won," while their soul 
is filled with strength and courage in the fray? 
They find it good to "let a little sunshine in," as 
still another of the hymns expresses it, to "clear 
the darkened windows, open wide the door,'' and 
bid defiance to the foe, while they "go rejoicing 
on the upward way, knowing naught of darkness, 
dwelling in the day." Then there are at least 
three songs which dwell on the duty of sending 
out this sunshine which has been let in. One 
says, 

"Scatter sunshine all along your way, 
Cheer and bless and brighten every passing day." 

And it rightly emphasizes the amount of joy 
and comfort which can thus be bestowed in a 
world where so much sorrow is known. Another 
song rings the changes on "Send out the sun- 
light of love" and of cheer, in letter and word, 



186 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

each hour of the day, that thus the burdens may be 
lightened, the miles of the journey shortened, the 
hungry hearts fed. Still another is entitled "Just 
a little sunshine," and inculcates the truth that if 
we are to be like the blessed Master we must do 
our part to lift the clouds of sorrow and make 
the roses grow. Then we have "Stepping in the 
Light," "Walking in the beautiful light of God," 
"Jesus, the Light of the world," "Send the Light," 
and many another that need not here be men- 
tioned. The hymn writers have certainly done 
their part to introduce us into the Beulah land 
where it is such immense joy to live, where is 
found the finest felicity, the highest hilarity, the 
jolliest jocularity, where there is cloudless com- 
munion, where companionship with Jesus makes 
life with bliss replete, where we enjoy a fellowship 
so dear that no foes or woes can make the heart 
afraid or disturb the serenity of its rest. 

We believe God wants Zion in these days, as 
much as in the days of old, to put on her beautiful 
garments, to have her "garments always white," 
smelling of "myrrh and aloes and cassia," while 
the head is anointed with "the oil of gladness." 
The prophet declares that in the year of Jehovah's, 
favor His people shall have "the oil of joy for 
mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness." Why not? .It is most comely. 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM. 



WHAT MATTER. 



What matter, friend, though you and I 

May sow, and others gather? 
We build, and others occupy 

Each laboring for the other? 
What though we toil from sun to sun, 

And men forget to flatter 
The noblest work our hands have done? 

If God approves, what matter? 

What matter though we sow in tears, 

And crops fail at the reaping? 
What though the fruit of patient years 

Fail, perish in our keeping? 
Upon our hoarded treasures floods 

Arise, and tempests scatter; 
If faith beholds beyond the clouds 

A clearer sky, what matter? 

What matter though our castles fall, 

And disappear while building? 
Though "strange handwriting" on the wall, 

Flame out amid the gilding? 
Though even- idol of the heart 

The hand of death may shatter, 
Though hopes decay, and friends depart; 

If heaven be ours, what matter? 

H. W. Teller. 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM. 

We have already said that no portion of Scrip- 
ture is more prolific of aid to the life of ecstasy, 
through its praises, prayers, precepts, and prom- 
ises, than the Book of Psalms. And if one were 
driven to the hard task of selecting three of these 
one hundred and fifty Hebrew hymns as, on the 
whole, best adapted to nourish the faith of God's 
children and increase their confidence in Provi- 
dence, the choice of most would probably rest 
on the 23d, the 46th and the 91st. It is quite cer- 
tain that the first and last of these, at least, are 
supreme favorites. 

It would be easy to write a chapter on the 23d, 
the shepherd psalm, which is doubtless the dear- 
est of all, the sweetest, the most precious, com- 
mitted to memory more widely and frequently 
than any other six consecutive verses of the Bible. 
But the very fact that it has been written upon so 
much, and that its riches are so thoroughly under- 
stood, makes it less necessary that we enlarge 
upon it here. Its imagery is very significant, its 
phrases very musical, its sentiment every way 
beautiful. It contains most wholesome doctrine. 



190 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

It is extremely stimulating to faith. It seems to 
be inexhaustible in its suggestiveness. It has a 
power to stir the heart that everybody feels. The 
dullest recognize something of its loveliness. The 
brightest find that each new reading brings out 
something fresh. Its pastures of tender grass, 
its waters of quietness and rest, its overflowing 
cup and full table, its gentle leadings and guid- 
ings, its gracious restorings, its deliverance from 
all danger, its protection against all foes, its com- 
fort amid all sorrows, its bountiful banqueting 
and grateful anointing, its goodness and loving 
kindness to follow, like footmen, "all the days," 
its happy life without want, happy death without 
fear, happy eternity "in the house of the Lord 
forever," its perfect satisfaction and perfect con- 
secration, its emphasis on righteousness, its full- 
ness of hope, its strong personal affirmations, its 
certainty and clearness and rapturousness — how 
much it all means, how impossible to sound its 
deepest depths. We may well thank God for this 
psalm, and give praises for the day when it was 
born. 

Then there is the 46th, almost equally a gem in 
its way, though not so universally appreciated and 
prized. It was Luther's favorite, the basis of his 
magnificent hymn, "A mighty fortress is our 
God," the battle song of the Reformation. In 
the darkest hours he used to say, "Come, let us 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 191 

sing the 46th psalm, and let them do their worst." 
It has been a strong support to multitudes more, 
in the three thousand years since it was written, 
" a very present help in trouble." The whole 
"city of God," that is, the assembly of the re- 
deemed in all lands, they who have become "tab- 
ernacles of the Most High," have been made glad 
by the streams of this full flowing river of sacred 
song, and by Him of whom it speaks. In the 
midst of raging nations and moving kingdoms, 
shaking mountains and roaring waters, they have 
not been moved or troubled. They have counted 
both the "desolations" and the pacifications in the 
earth to be equally "works of the Lord," and have 
rejoiced in both, because they have beheld in them 
Him, their great Companion. They have heard 
Him say, "Be still, and know," and in the silence 
which His blessed presence makes they have come 
to know Him as never before, to comprehend His 
character, His truth, His wisdom, His power, 
His love, and to say, This God of the patriarchs 
and prophets, this mighty Jehovah of hosts, is 
even with us, our refuge and strength. 

We take up more fully the 91st, because it 
seems to fall in so perfectly with the scheme of 
this book, to detail so graphically God's care, to 
strike so high a note of joy, to speak so clear a 
word of trust, to embody, or imply, so many com- 
prehensive promises; while at the same time it 



192 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

needs, perhaps, a little more than the other two, 
a few words of explanation. 

In the first place, we suggest that it would be 
much plainer and more precious if the pronouns 
were uniformly throughout put in the first person. 
At present all three persons are used, somewhat 
miscellaneously and indiscriminately and with 
much confusion of the sense. Commentators have 
been puzzled by it, and have found it very diffi- 
cult to give any good reason for such perplexing 
altenations. It must be admitted, we think, to be 
a large drawback from the unity and simplicity 
and effectiveness of this poetical composition, a 
manifest flaw in its structure. We deem it wholly 
allowable to increase its devotional power by such 
a transposition of the pronouns as will make them 
harmonious throughout. By putting all in the 
first person — or at least all after the first verse, 
which is a kind of general introduction and pre- 
lude to the testimony — we have a straightforward 
declaration, harmonious from beginning to end, 
and far more emphatic. The meaning is not 
changed in the slightest degree, no liberty is taken 
with the sentiment or the doctrine ; but the need- 
less distraction from the frequent, and, so far as 
can be discerned, meaningless, shifting about of 
the persons, is avoided, and there is manifest gain 
in power. For the purposes of the closet we 
would certainly advise that this substituting be 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 193 

always made. In the reading here given we fol- 
low the American Revised Version (as usually 
throughout this book), adopting its marginal ren- 
dering in the first verse, then changing the pro- 
noun "thou," "thine," "thee," to "I," "mine," and 
"me," so as to make the rest of the psalm a con- 
tinuous, affirmative witness on the part of the 
saint who is supposed to be speaking, who is in- 
troduced to us, indeed, in the second verse of the 
common translation, and then, for some unac- 
countable cause, disappears, for the most part, in 
all the other verses. 

"He that dwelleth in the sacred place of the 
Most High, that abideth under the shadow of the 
Almighty, even /, will say of Jehovah, He is my 
refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom / trust. 
For He will deliver me from the snare of the 
fowler, and from the deadly pestilence. He will 
cover me with His pinions, and under His wings 
will / take refuge; His truth is a shield and a 
buckler. / will not be afraid for the terror by 
night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day ; for the 
pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the 
destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand 
shall fall at my side, and ten thousand at my right 
hand, but it shall not come nigh me. Only with 
mine eyes shall I behold and see the reward of the 
wicked. For thou, O Jehovah, art my refuge. I 
have made the Most High my habitation; there 



194 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

shall no evil befall me, neither shall any plague 
come nigh my tent. For He will give His angels 
charge over me, to keep me in all my ways. They 
shall bear me up in their hands, lest I dash my 
foot against a stone. / shall tread upon the lion 
and adder ; the young lion and the serpent shall / 
trample under foot. Because / have set my love 
upon Him, therefore will He deliver me; He will 
set me on high, because I have known His name. 
/ will call upon Him, and He shall answer me; 
He will be with me in trouble ; He will deliver me, 
and honor me. With long life will He satisfy me, 
and show me His salvation." 

What can be more deserving of profound medi- 
tation than this remarkable poem. Whatever time 
may be spent upon it will be repaid a thousand- 
fold. There are, to be sure, those who hardly 
know how to take it, who are, indeed, not a little 
stumbled by its positive, sweeping assertions, 
which, they say, are not borne out in daily life. 
They declare that the righteous man is not im- 
mune from the attacks of disease and other such 
things, that the pestilence seizes him, the lion 
tears him, the serpent stings him, and that plenti- 
ful evils of every sort befall him. "Wings," they 
cry, "feathers, bucklers, angels in charge? We 
do not see them; we know nothing of them; quite 
the opposite has been our portion; we are not 
sheltered in a fortress, we are exposed to many 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 195 

foes, we are loaded with many weights, we are 
bound fast in shackles." Yes, no doubt. Prom- 
ises of this sort are by no means for all. The 
first verse makes that plain. A very exclusive 
circle, indeed, is indicated. To have any right to 
these grand words, one must "dwell in the secret 
place of the Most High" and "abide under 
the shadow of the Almighty." Surely this points 
to the closest, completest fellowship with God, 
to a communion with Him that is continuous, 
knowing no diminution or deviation. It includes 
those, and only those, who have been far beyond 
the outer courts of the sanctuary, and have pene- 
trated to the most holy place, the innermost 
shrine. There, under the outstretched wings of 
the cherubim, close beside the mercy-seat, with the 
Shekinah blazing upon them, the most intimate 
audience chamber of the Most High their abode 
and habitation, not where they are favored guests 
for a transient, trembling hour, but where they 
dwell always, there, in that mysterious ecstatic 
presence staying, it is not difficult to repeat with 
all confidence the words of this psalm. The power 
to repeat them honestly, and to understand them 
fully, is one of the perquisites and tokens of those 
who reside in the place mentioned. He who balks 
at these declarations may rightfully conclude 
that his residence is elsewhere. They who, like 
Anna, depart not from the temple day or night, 



196 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

or who, like the virgin souls mentioned in the 
Apocalypse, follow the Lamb whithersoever He 
goeth, do not find these words too strong for them 
or meet with any difficulty in making them their 
own. 

Of course it is the imaginative language of po- 
etry, kindled and crowded with emotion, and not 
to be interpreted as if it were a series of mathe- 
matical propositions. There are no literal pinions 
by which we are to be covered, just as there are 
no literal hawks which are seeking to pounce 
upon us. It is a beautiful symbol, like that which 
the Saviour used when He said, "O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
chickens under her wings." The lion and the ad- 
der will not literally lie down innocuous and per- 
mit us to work our will upon them unresisting. 
This probably everybody understands. And in 
the same way, making due allowance for the im- 
agery, we may understand the other strong ex- 
pressions. We do not look to see precisely ten 
thousand people drop dead at our right hand, nor 
should we feel that God had in any way deserted 
or forgotten us if He took us to Himself by 
means of some contagious disease. He who in- 
sists on any of these particulars shows that he 
has not mastered the rudiments of this style of 
literature. But the preciousness and power of 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 197 

this noble poem do not depend at all upon our be- 
ing able to find in each word and phrase the pre- 
cise measure of our protection, but rather in the 
absolute trustfulness in God, which every line so 
deliciously breathes. Other symbols than these 
might have been used for conveying the same 
ideas, as indeed they are in the 23d psalm, and 
other assertions of similar purport made, as they 
are in other parts of Scripture ; but nowhere do 
we discover anything more solid, more beautiful, 
more profound, more cheering than this, nowhere 
a loftier tone, a nobler faith. It has been well 
said that "No poem, either in Greek or Latin, is 
comparable to this Hebrew ode" ; nor has it been 
surpassed in modern times. 

It contains so much that we cannot hope in 
the limited space we ought here to fill to do more 
than indicate very briefly a few of its treasures. 
For one thing, it calls attention, near the very 
beginning, to the importance of open, bold avowal 
— "I will say of Jehovah" — in honor of God and 
His goodness. Believers ought to speak out more 
freely and let their joys be known, so that others 
may be led to seek the same confidence in the 
Lord. We permit a false modesty, a craven fear 
of slighting remarks or of mis judgment, too often 
to stop our tongues and rob God of the glory 
which is His due. 

The four names oJ Deitv in the first and second 



198 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

verses are noteworthy, indicating, it has been 
suggested, the four thoughts, communion, rest, 
joy, and trust. Four blessings are mentioned as 
coming from the wings: we are concealed, pro- 
tected, refreshed, nourished. The four things 
that are specifically mentioned in the fifth and 
sixth verses — terror, arrow, pestilence, destruc- 
tion — may well stand for all conceivable sources 
of harm from the four quarters of the earth, or 
the four dimensions of space, just as the four 
watches of night mean the whole realm of dark- 
ness. 

It does not say that we shall not be seised by 
any pestilence, but that we shall not be afraid of 
any. And that distinction may well be borne in 
mind throughout the psalm. The thought of the 
writer manifestly is that nothing shall come upon 
the favorite of heaven, who is so near to God as 
to be within His shadow, except such as God may 
appoint for the carrying out of His infinitely wise 
and loving purposes. "There shall no evil befall" 
him ; it being well understood that what we com- 
monly call misfortunes, afflictions, and calamities 
are not truly evil to the believer, for he has an 
alchemy that turns them all to good. Losses en- 
rich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his 
honor. Death itself is not to him an evil, but a 
gain. The Psalmist does not say that nothing 
painful shall befall him, but nothing evil. That 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 199 

we may believe implicitly, for the whole Bible is 
full of it. May we not enlarge the promise so as 
to say that the plague of moral evil, or back- 
sliding into sin, shall not touch him who dwells in 
the secret place. He must go out of that sheltered 
refuge before the enemy can get any power over 
him. 

Even if our earthly habitation be only a tent it 
is turned into an impregnable fortress if God be 
there. The princes of the blood imperial have an 
angel body-guard from heaven. As the nurse or 
the mother takes up the little one in especially 
rough walking lest his tender feet be bruised, so 
our heavenly father looks after us, warding off 
even the minor ills such as might come from the 
stones in the way. Satan quoted this to Jesus as 
an argument for presumption, leaving out the es- 
sential clause, "in all thy ways." It is only in the 
ways assigned us from above, and hence becom- 
ing in the best sense ours, it is only when God's 
ways become ours, that we have any business to 
expect the angel charge. In the path of duty, 
and until our day of work is done, we may defy 
the deadliest ills ; neither force nor fraud, violence 
nor cunning, lions nor adders, can prevail against 
us ; not even Satan, who is both the roaring lion 
and the gliding serpent. The people of God are 
the true lion-tamers and serpent-charmers. Satan, 
perhaps, may also be pointed at by the fowler, in 



200 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

verse three. Paul tells us more than once of the 
snare of the devil, and those taken captive by him, 
and says, "they that are minded to be rich fall into 
a snare." Certainly from this the close walker 
with God is delivered, for he has such stores of 
true riches, all things being his, that he cares not 
for the perishing wealth of this world. 

In the last three verses we have a wonderful 
description of God's favorites, and a plain inti- 
mation of what makes them His favorites. There 
are no less than seven "I wills" here — I will de- 
liver him (repeated twice), I will set him on 
high. I will answer him, I will be with him in 
trouble, I will honor him, I will satisfy him with 
long life, I will show him my salvation. What 
boundless provision of privilege is here ! It seems 
to culminate and reach a climax at the close ; for 
if we are shown all of God's great salvation, what 
more is there to ask for? And if our life is 
lengthened out till we are fully satisfied that we 
have had enough, what matters it when we go. It 
is, of course, the tendency of religion to lengthen 
life in the most literal sense, just as it is the 
tendency of fearlessness to thrust away conta- 
gion. A German physician was wont to speak of 
this psalm as the best preservative in times of 
cholera ; the quiet cheerfulness which such words 
inspire is a marvelous prophylactic. God's hon- 
oring us, setting us on high, putting us on a 



THE NINETY-FIRST PSALM 201 

tower, does not, of course, necessarily mean that 
we shall be exalted in the sight of men; that is 
of no consequence. Nor does His answering us 
mean that He will grant all our requests ; He can- 
not do so in our own interests, unless, indeed, we 
make our requests in the Spirit, while we abide in 
Jesus and His words abide in us. But the "an- 
swer" means that our petition will be carefully 
considered, and the very best thing done. May 
we not also find a personal touch in the "J will be 
with him," I, not my angels, not my messengers, 
when real trouble comes. We cannot put too 
much significance into that monosyllable "I." 

What are the conditions of all this blessedness ? 
Who are those thus favored? They who call 
upon God, and know His name, and set their love 
upon Him. We are not dowered with all these 
precious gifts because of our special deserts, or 
because we are peculiarly constituted in any way, 
but because, with all our imperfections w T e do love 
Him with all our heart, and trust Him with all 
our might. It would seem that they who really 
know Him, know His love and wisdom and 
power, know His trustworthiness and faithfulness 
and graciousness, must of necessity call upon him 
and love Him. Knowledge is at the bottom of it 
all. It is on this account that we have taken 
much pains in some of the previous chapters of 
this book to make the readers acquainted with 



202 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

God's ways. When His character is fully grasped 
the best possible foundation is laid for all the glad 
glories of a life in closest union with Him. Many 
there are that love God, but not many have,, in the 
completest sense of the term, set their love upon 
Him, in that intense, all-absorbing way which en- 
titles them to dwell in the secret place, under the 
Almighty's shadow, and reap the good which so 
plentifully follows. Let the reader ask himself, 
to what extent or degree he can adopt the lan- 
guage of this psalm. 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS. 



OUR HOME ABOVE. 



We thank Thee, gracious Father, 

For many a pleasant da}*, 
For bird and flower, and joyous hour, 

For friends, and work, and play. 
Of blessing and of mercy 

Our life has had its share; 
This world is not a wilderness, 

Thou hast made all things fair. 

But fairer still, and sweeter, 

The things that are above; 
We look and long to join the song 

In the land of light and love. 
We trust the Word which tells us 

Of that divine abode; 
By faith we bring its glories nigh, 

While hope illumes the road. 

So death has lost its terrors; 

How can we fear it now? 
Its face, once grim, now leads to Him 

At whose command we bow. 
His presence makes us happy. 

His service is delight. 
The many mansions gleam and glow, 

The saints our souls invite. 

James Mudge. 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS. 

The closing chapter of this endeavor to explain 
the underlying principles of a permanently ec- 
static state may well be given, we think, to a sort 
of summary wherein shall be furnished a selection 
of mottoes, or pithy directions, having close bear- 
ing on the subject in hand. In making rules for 
a happy life no two persons would altogether 
agree as to phraseology or substance. There is 
manifest room for vast variety of statement. By 
their own experience or mental make-up some 
are ready to emphasize one phase of the matter, 
some another. The essentials may be substan- 
tially the same, while the way of putting it is very 
diverse. We submit the following, therefore, 
with deference, but with the hope that they may 
be found helpful to many, and with the firm as- 
surance that, so far as adopted, they will tend 
toward abiding joy. We shall study brevity so 
far as it may be compatible with clearness and the 
due development of the thought. 

I. Deal directly until God. Quite a part of 
this book has been occupied in showing why we 
should do this, and how large a ground there was 



206 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

for it in the facts of God's relation to His crea- 
tion. The propriety of it and the comfort of it is, 
we hope, by this time, sufficiently evident to all 
who have read thus far in these pages. The re- 
sult of dealing exclusively, or even mainly, with 
men and things, as nearly all people do, is sore 
trial and great loss. It is certainly a great mis- 
take. What are men but God's hand ? What are 
things but the products of His power, and the 
channel of His energy-? It is much better to go 
to headquarters and settle matters with the re- 
sponsible manager of affairs, than to bother with 
subordinates. It is better to behold God's hand in 
everything, to take all from Him, and do all for 
Him. This makes a vast difference with our 
peace of mind. The bereavement which is so 
hard to bear when we imagine it the result of our 
own neglect, or of the ignorance, if not the wick- 
edness, of others, becomes much easier when we 
receive it as the appointment of a loving Father 
too wise to err and too good to be unkind. To be 
stripped of our property by designing men or by 
the merciless conflagration is difficult to endure, 
but to give it up at the word of One who gave up 
everything through love of us is quite another 
thing. It is in this way we walk by faith, we 
defy circumstances, we disregard appearances, 
we tread the earth elastic and buoyant, a con- 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 207 

tinual conqueror, putting all enemies under our 
feet. "Cease from man." 

2. Stop! Look! Listen! At the crossing of the 
highways with some railway lines there has been 
placed, instead of the cumbersome, bungling old 
formula still elsewhere in use, the simple but ef- 
fective and expressive legend, "Stop ! Look ! Lis- 
ten!" This covers the whole ground in fewest 
words, says just enough and no more, hitting the 
essential points precisely. And these same three 
short syllables have very exact application to an 
important need of the religious life, the need of 
that constant recollectedness of spirit which is at 
the foundation of the practice of the presence of 
God and unceasing prayer. By persistence the in- 
valuable habit may be formed of acting upon this 
comprehensive motto. It may come to be a spon- 
taneous suggestion connected with passing down 
or up stairs, entering or leaving a room, crossing 
a street or a railway track, interviewing strangers 
or friends. The three things indicated have each 
a most important place in spiritual regimen, and 
when combined have wonderful pow T er to enable 
us to keep ourselves in the love of God, and in 
that serenity of mind so desirable, but so often 
disturbed. We must pause in the mad rush of the 
times, cultivate moderation and deliberation, be 
calmer, unflustered, not eager and impatient, more 
tranquil and serene; then there will be fewer 



208 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

breakdowns and larger accomplishment. We must 
lift our inward eye constantly to the source of our 
help, must look ever to Jesus if we would really 
live for Him, correcting human sights and esti- 
mates and glamours by the continual vision of the 
Saviour; then we shall keep a steady course to 
the heavenly harbor. We must hear what God is 
continually trying to say to us, for w T e cannot be 
counted as truly belonging to the flock of Christ 
if we are ignorant of His voice, and we can only 
recognize it by perpetual practice and by the hush- 
ing of other sounds. The essentials of the deep- 
est, highest living are very closely involved in 
these three pungent imperatives. If they are duly 
heeded a relightful transformation will be 
wrought in the character, and God will be greatly 
glorified. 

3. Never Complain. To complain is to sin. 
Very few seem to understand this, or, if they do, 
they are not very sensitive as to what they call 
little sins. They do not seriously take themselves 
to task about the habit of finding fault with almost 
everything that goes on around them, make no 
real effort to break themselves of it. They even 
take pride in it, as an evidence of their superiority, 
their high standard, their efficiency. It is right, 
of course, to protest, calmly, at proper times, 
against ill treatment ; it is right to enter our objec- 
tions to policies we do not approve ; it is right to 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 209 

see that subordinates do the work for which they 
are paid. The complaint that should be avoided is 
discontent with the divine arrangements, with 
things that are inevitable, irrevocable, irretrieva- 
ble, and hence to be accepted with loyalty to Him 
who has sent them. A constant finding fault with 
the weather, or with personal inconveniences 
which are entailed in travelling, or in the round 
of household affairs, cultivates a sense of injus- 
tice and displeasure which is as fatal to one's own 
peace of mind as it is uncomfortable for all 
around us. It arises from a failure to behold God 
in that which comes. It is a setting up of our 
will and way as preferable to that of the Master. 
It shows a lack of faith. It makes happiness im- 
possible. The legitimate, reasonable, righteous 
times for w T hat can fairly be called complaint are 
so few that the rule, "Never complain/' w r ill not 
have many exceptions, and is well worth adopting. 
4. Be Civil but not Servile. Or, to put it a 
little differently, be servant of all, servile to none. 
Service, helpfulness, kindliness of soul, is noble 
and Godlike. Servility or sycophancy is despica- 
ble and vile. Yet the two oftentimes appear con- 
siderably alike, and in avoiding the one it is easy 
to run into the other. Some, for fear they shall 
be accounted servile, are hardly civil. They over- 
do their independence till they fail in politeness. 
They believe, very rightly, that they ought to be 



210 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

aggressive and positive for the right, but they do 
not sufficiently study to avoid being needlessly 
repulsive. It is possible to war, and still be win- 
some ; to be intense in our love to Jesus, and still 
maintain thoroughly cordial and sympathetic rela- 
tions with those who are not His friends ; to be 
loyal to the truth, and yet loving to the neglecters 
or opponents of the truth. A delicate and difficult 
line of conduct is here hinted at. We must neither 
be indifferent to the right, nor fail in charity. We 
must be pure, without being Puritanic. We can 
have a true holiness, without letting it be turned 
into a sour, cold, Pharisaic severity toward the 
unholy, which has no very close resemblance to the 
Christ-like spirit of love. A very narrow margin 
separates good from evil in these matters. Indeed, 
the evil is often only an abuse or a misdirection 
of the good. So it requires extremely careful 
walking and much wisdom to order one's life in 
the higher ranges. Too much is as bad as too lit- 
tle. Blessed is he who strikes the golden mean. 
Christ Jesus took upon Him the form of a serv- 
ant, yet bore Himself with royal dignity, and, 
wherever it seemed essential, asserted His right- 
ful claims with calmest majesty. St. Paul, also, 
at proper times maintained his rights with a 
strength and courage that impressed all beholders, 
although it was the rule of his life to make him- 
self servant unto all, that he might gain the more. 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 211 

The combination is by no means impossible — no 
truckling, no grovelling, but always helping ; con- 
stant courtesy, never servility. 

5. Be Childlike, but not Childish. This is an- 
other point where discrimination is called for. 
There are certain traits of childhood which we are 
never to outgrow, however long we live, while 
there are other traits that we are to put away that 
we may become men. What are the former? 
Teachableness, for one thing. We should be 
friendly to fresh ideas, ready to take in new truth, 
or new forms and presentations of that which is 
old. We should be hungry for information, have 
an inquiring spirit, an open mind. For it is cer- 
tain that no department of learning is yet ex- 
hausted, the Bible is not completely understood, 
and it is still true, as of old, that "my people are 
destroyed for lack of knowledge.'" Trustfulness 
is another admirable quality of the little one, to be 
cherished by all and forever. There is not enough 
of it in the world, even with reference to man, 
much more with reference to God. Simplicity 
also should be carried over into adult years. Af- 
fectation and artificiality are too much with us. 
Life is too crowded and complex. The funda- 
mental things do not get room and scope enough, 
being crowded upon unduly by much that might 
we!! be omitted. A true simplicity is opposed 
both to complexity and duplicity. It means being 



212 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

open, frank, sincere, devoid of pretense, having a 
single eye. We should remain children in these 
things. But children are fickle, changeable, impa- 
tient; they are ignorant and impulsive; they are 
tormented by foolish fears. And such traits, if 
they are continued too long, make people child- 
ish. In mind Paul tells us to be men, while babes 
in malice. There must be self-mastery, self-con- 
trol, principle instead of passion, caution instead 
of rashness. We must not live for the day, al- 
though in one sense we may be said to live by the 
day. We cannot have too much knowledge, or 
gird up the loins of our mind too tightly to grap- 
ple with the serious problems that confront every 
full-grown individual. Our spiritual growth de- 
pends not a little on our mental development. 

6. Be Rightly Ambitious. Ambition has so ill 
a sound from its bad connections in the past that 
good people are a little afraid of it ; and they are 
thereby in danger of doing themselves a harm. 
A crying lack among Christians is at this very 
point ; they are too little ambitious : they are too 
readily content with low things in the matter of 
spiritual attainment, when they ought to be in- 
tensely aspiring after that which is high. We 
hear them declaring their purpose to be "more 
faithful/' as though that were very commendable, 
and indeed all that could reasonably be expected. 
They do not appear to see that that resolve 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 213 

smacks strongly of disloyalty to the King, it 
leaves open a door to the enemy, it provides for 
something less than entire faithfulness, it says 
''some of self and some of Thee/' when the lan- 
guage ought to be "none of self, and all of Thee." 
No one with deliberate intent should contemplate 
anything less than complete faithfulness. If there 
be some falling short in spite of largest endeavor, 
because of some weakness of the flesh, let not the 
spirit strike hands with such unwillingness, or 
admit the least compromise with the foe. The 
only safe way is to resolve to be the best. Only 
by a constant forward movement is retreat avoid- 
ed. One needs to be very positive to keep out of 
the slough of the indolent comparative, and reach 
the rock of the glorious superlative. Ambition 
has a place in the Christian's make-up. St. Paul 
uses the word three times, as readers of the Re- 
vised Version will see, either in declarations con- 
cerning himself or exhortations to his followers. 
He employs a Greek compound which stands dis- 
tinctively and unequivocally for love of fame. The 
three passages are i Thess. IV. n, n Cor. V. 9, 
and Rom. XV. 20. In one he places a high enco- 
mium on quietness, in another on being "well 
^leasing unto him," in a third on the extension of 
the Gospel, the opening up of new regions for the 
reign of Jesus. Ambitions of this sort cannot be 
too firmly cherished, or too largely multiplied. 



214 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

To be perfectly peaceful amid outward commo- 
tion because trusting so implicitly in the strong 
and loving Father; to be taken into close com- 
panionship with the King of kings, because doing 
His will without cessation ; and to tell the won- 
drous story to those who have not yet received 
it, or to aid very generously those who are telling 
it — the more of this the better. 

7. Be Gentle Towards All. No matter how 
religious people are, or how certain of their stand- 
ing before God, they cannot afford to neglect the 
common virtues, such as gentleness, which every- 
body appreciates, and for lack of which many have 
their goodness discredited by the world. Good- 
manners are a part of good morals, since genuine 
love, when it is fully seated within, will necessar- 
ily take on courteous forms. Real kindness w T ill 
find ways of kindly expression. That which 
comes naturally to the well-born and refined will 
come also in its main substance as a result of 
grace, as a fruit of the Spirit. Affability, gra- 
ciousness, sweet reasonableness, urbanity, and 
readiness to accommodate, will largely character- 
ize the true Christian. He will not be sharp and 
spiteful, wrathy and rude, churlish and snappish, 
acrimonious and exacerbating. He will be 
thoughtful for others, studious of that which will 
give pleasure, careful to avoid all needless wound- 
ing of feelings, tender in his touch, especially if he 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 215 

is obliged to touch in places where pain is likely 
to be produced. He will not say disagreeable 
things if he can avoid it, not say them as if he 
was glad to do it, he will soften the hardness of 
the needful reproof with the sweetness of the love 
which is seen to prompt it. Perfect gentleness 
and meekness need not degenerate into weakness, 
or involve compromise with wrong. One need 
not be bluff and blunt, and gruff and churlish, to 
show his courage, or prove that he has some 
stamina. One need not be pliable where principle 
is concerned, nor yield to the pressure of tempta- 
tion simply because he purposes to be always po- 
lite. Paul was a thorough gentleman, and so was 
his Master ; he did not break the bruised reed nor 
quench the smoking flax, as rough handling 
would speedily have done. We may be like him 
in this, as well as in his resolute, vigorous opposi- 
tion to evil. 

8. Be in Dead Earnest Enthusiasm is called 
for, and will be exhibited by those who have God 
in them, and are thus in God ; for this is the literal 
meaning of the word, "in God." One may be 
enthusiastic without being fanatical, full of zeal 
without being rash, headstrong and unreasonable. 
If good intentions are not intense they are worth 
very little. A wish is by no means a will. When 
the mind sets itself on the accomplishment of the 
thing in hand, braces itself for high endeavor, it 



216 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

will not permit itself to be frustrated by little 
hindrances. One secret of success is not to know 
when we are defeated. Men of the world often 
rebuke us for half-heartedness in religion, by the 
whole-heartedness with which they pursue their 
inferior objects, being wiser thus in their gener- 
ation than are the children of light in theirs, as 
the Master said. The prophet Micah writes of 
the wicked men of his day, that they do evil "with 
both hands earnestly. 7 ' It is a phrase that may 
well be adopted by the good, many of whom work 
as with but one hand, or if they take two do it 
listlessly. They do not take off their coat and 
roll up their sleeves in God's cause, as if they 
really meant business. It is not "one thing" with 
them, as it was with the apostle Paul. Few are 
they who learn to put first things first, and do not 
shilly shally, but determine to get the best at any 
cost. We must aim at perfection all the while, 
and refuse to sit satisfied with anything short of 
it. We may be absolutely sure that nothing pays 
half so well as God and the serving him with the 
whole heart. Let us purpose with all the strength 
of our being to stand perfect and complete in all 
His will. 

9. Learn to Pray. The grand difficulty with 
very many souls, though they may not know it, is 
prayer. The reason why they do not go forward 
is because they do not really and effectively pray. 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 217 

Prayer is mainly communion, a perpetual lifting 
of the heart to God in swift ejaculations. And 
this is a habit which most Christians are very 
slow to acquire, but which holds in itself a very 
large portion of concentrated happiness. It springs 
from and helps to a recollected spirit. Then, so 
far as the petitioning part of prayer goes, they are 
almost equally lame. They do very little genuine 
asking, and therefore there is very little real re- 
ceiving. Their requests are routine, formal, un- 
helpful ; they know not what to ask for, or how 
to ask. Certain things are essential to efficiency 
in this matter. We must be downright honest in 
our prayers, asking only for the things which, on 
careful examination, we are sure that we do actu- 
ally want, and want so much that we are willing 
to pay the price for them. In many prayers there 
is more poetry than piety, more rhetoric than 
reality, more empty sound than solid satisfaction 
to the Lord. Praying in Christ's name means 
praying in His spirit or stead, as it would not be 
out of place for Him to ask if He were here. This 
means unselfishness, a pure motive, a single desire 
for the interests of His kingdom, not merely for 
the progress of some petty scheme of our own. 
Praying with faith means having some basis to 
rest our petitions upon, some promise of God ex- 
pressed or clearly implied, which we can plead. 
It is only when we ask according to His will, that 



218 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

will being ascertained by the best use of a clear 
understanding, that we can feel sure we are to 
have our requests granted. To go ahead without 
evidence, as fancy or desire or hope may guide, is 
not faith but sheer fanaticism, the effect of a dis- 
ordered brain. We must put both heart and mind 
into our prayers, and see that they are accom- 
panied by much work. They must in no way be 
associated with laziness either ethical, intellectual, 
or physical, or be made a substitute for labor. 
And the lamp of prayer will surely burn dim un- 
less it is frequently replenished with oil. 

In other words, there is the closest possible 
connection between devotional reading and fruit- 
ful supplication. When the mind has been sucked 
dry of uplifting thoughts by the multiplicity of 
distracting temporal interests that continually 
prey upon it, a fresh supply must be provided. 
Spiritual reading is indispensable. It acts upon 
the intellect, refreshes the emotions, and through 
them reaches the will. It has a power of sugges- 
tiveness that is invaluable. The affections are 
stirred. The cold heart is warmed. The laggard 
purpose is quickened. There is a general arouse- 
ment of the whole soul. Now one can pray. 
He feels ashamed that he has fallen so far behind 
the examples of which he reads. He learns what 
his real needs are, and how best to meet them. 
Divine voices leap into his heart from off the 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 219 

printed page. God speaks to him through the 
pens of His choicest children. Acts of faith, hope, 
love, and desire become easy. He takes a new 
start. His whole life becomes steadily trans- 
formed. 

10. Be Independent. Our attitude toward men 
and their praise needs to be very closely watched. 
"The fear of man bringeth a snare." The love 
of popularity is a rock which has wrecked multi- 
tudes. Nothing is more demoralizing than a con- 
stant struggle to be in general favor. Nothing is 
more foolish than to put our peace of mind at the 
disposal of those around us, and permit them to 
make us miserable when they like. This is a most 
degrading slavery. On the other hand, he who 
wraps himself in a proud, haughty reserve, and 
makes it plain that he cares for nobody, will soon 
find that nobody cares for him, and that he has 
lost all his influence. There are two sides to the 
subject. But, on the whole, it seems to us that 
most people are so constituted that their danger is 
in the direction of too little independence rather 
than too much. Hundreds are lost, or fail to take 
a high stand in religion, because they feel they 
must go with the multitude, where tens or units 
err on the opposite side. We need to remember 
that to please men is not so important as to profit 
them ; to please men in general is less important 
than to please good men; and to please men of 



220 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

any kind must always be subordinate to pleasing 
God. 

If we fear God very much we shall fear man 
but little. If we make Him great we shall make 
man small. This is the side to be cultivated by 
most of us. We must be ready to stand alone and 
count human judgment very insignificant in com- 
parison with the divine. We must not incur the 
displeasure of God in the slightest degree to 
secure the highest rewards of men. We must 
say, I will be scrupulously, unalterably, universal- 
ly true, and leave the result to God ; I will throw 
prudence to the winds rather than be false in 
the smallest particular ; I will not measure my suc- 
cess by the standards of the world ; I will leave 
the shows of things, and hold to the realities : let 
others take the comfits and the comforts and the 
compliments, give me righteousness and truth. 

II. Love Everybody. This will help ever so 
much in regulating our relations with those 
around us. If we love them we shall not be likely 
to hold ourselves aloof in isolation and indiffer- 
ence ; nor shall we bend to their caprice and cater 
to their folly, lest we lose the incense of their 
flattery, or even forfeit their good will. We shall 
avoid all needless friction, but we shall sacrifice 
no grain of principle at the altar of popularity. 
Loving everybody does not mean that we are not 
to be outspoken in our condemnation, of sin, hit- 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 221 

ting it no matter with whom it may be mixed up. 
It does not mean that we shall approve of every- 
body's conduct, or refrain from taking steps to 
oppose them and punish them if we deem them 
to be wrong. It does not mean that we are to 
love everybody in the same way or to the same 
extent. ^Ye shall have our favorites, even as 
Jesus did among His disciples. It does not mean 
that we shall totally forget self, in a blind, foolish 
enthusiasm which prompts us to part with all our 
goods at everybody's demand, or from a desire to 
relieve all the poverty we see. Christianity is not 
communism, nor mendicant monkery. To love 
everybody, even our enemies, does mean doing 
them good just so far as we can find or make op- 
portunities, speaking pleasant things of and to 
them, and earnestly praying that they may be 
blest. These things we may and must do if we 
are to be really happy. We cannot afford, for 
our own sake, to do any differently. It does not 
pay in any sense to foster hatred, to take um- 
brage, or to have a grudge and a grievance. It is 
the worst possible investment. A very little of 
this sort of thing will shut God out of our hearts, 
strip us of usefulness, poison our life. Very pleas- 
ant is it to have the bird in the bosom sing sweet- 
ly. To love is much more than to be loved. The 
latter is not always within our power. But no- 
body can stop us from sending out constant waves 



222 THE LIFE ECSTATIC 

of love in all directions, and nothing will fill our 
souls with greater bliss, or make us more like 
Jesus. 

12. Take a New Start. He who thinks he has 
got to a stopping place, that he is about as good 
as he needs to be, that he can rest on his laurels, 
that he knows it all, that it is of no use to try 
anything further, makes a fatal mistake. The 
only way is to keep at it, and stick to it. There 
is always more beyond. There is always a chance 
to improve, to do better in some particulars than 
we have ever done before, to draw a little closer 
to God, to increase the promptness and heartiness 
with which we welcome His will in hard places. 
It is almost always possible to find and stop cer- 
tain small leaks which are drawing ofif our spir- 
itual strength, and diminishing our religious re- 
sources. Our watchfulness may be increased ; we 
may get more out of the means of grace ; the Bible 
may be made to yield us larger riches ; other good 
books may be laid hold of to a greater extent than 
hitherto ; chances for profitable conversation may 
be more steadily improved — in short, in a dozen 
ways, which need not here be particularized, we 
may gird up our loins and get fuller returns for 
our time. Our progress will depend very greatly 
on our seizing quickly every opportunity which 
can be bought up, and turning, it to advantage for 
spiritual gain. It may be a birthday, or new year, 
or a series of special meetings, or a great affliction 



SOME MOTTOES AND MAXIMS 223 

— make it the occasion for taking a new start ; the 
oftener the better. Scarcely anybody goes along 
with perfect uniformity and evenness, at an un- 
hastened, undiminished pace. It is rather a series 
of minor or major crises. We never get so good 
but what we can be better ; never so fully conse- 
crated but what, as new things as brought to our 
mind in the conflicts of life, we can add them to 
the offering. "To patient faith the prize is sure." 
We have need of much faith and great perse- 
verance if we would inherit all the promises. 
Now is an excellent time to buckle the belt a little 
tighter, to put the standard up another notch, to 
start out afresh with new determination to obtain 
all that has been made possible for us in Christ 
Jesus. 

These special advices might be almost indefi- 
nitely prolonged, for the range of such counsel is 
very wide. But this little book is already per- 
haps sufficiently large, and we think it contains 
the gist of the matter. Other devotional books 
which we have sent out, particularly "The Life of 
Love," "The Land of Faith," and "The Saintly 
Calling," develop some of these points more fully, 
and illustrate them in various ways. If the reader 
is profited by this he can procure those. We 
earnestly pray that he may not be a reader or 
hearer only, but a doer, and may enter into all 
the rich joys we have tried to describe in these 
pages. 



SEP 18 1906 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

! II I II! I 1 1 III II III III! llll II 



01 



7 053 302 1 



